Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Bleeding Hearts


I have had an urge to do a large painting again - it has been a while. My smaller 9x12's - although I love doing them, there is a special feeling when doing a large as life (or larger than life) painting. This painting is done on a 16x20 gallery stretched canvas with 1-1/2 inch sides - the painted image extends on all 4 of the sides. I have to say that this looks better in person - I find it very hard to capture reds well with the camera.

The subject is one of my favorite spring flowers - the bleeding heart. I have a few of these plants in my gardens and I start watching for them to sprout up right around now. This image is from a photo I took of them last year when they were full in bloom. Their small, delicate heart-like blossoms stand out among the green foliage so well - and since this plant loves shade or only part sun, they brighten up some of the darker areas of the garden. 

Painting on a 16x20 canvas again felt strange at first. The odd thing is that in my early years of artwork, the 16x20 size was the only size I would do. Then, with time, I got away from the stretched canvas's - partly because of expense and partly because of the room they take up. I also hated to waste a stretched canvas with a so-so painting that didn't work out well. So I took to the canvas sheets, which are a fraction of the cost of a stretched canvas. This way, if it didn't work out well, it was not a significant loss in the wallet. In the back of my mind I told myself, these canvas sheets are only temporary - I will return to stretched canvas's again, once I have more confidence that my work will turn out well. 

That comment in the back of my mind was well over 2 years ago, and I realize that I've gotten "comfortable" with these sheets - too comfortable. Time to break out from my comfort zone! So I ordered 3 canvas's at this larger size - this painting is the first one done. I have a second photo, different subject, already in mind for the 2nd painting. Like I said - time to shake things up a little bit!

By the way, prints of the original photo are available through my Fine Art America gallery - link is on the right side of my blog.

4 comments:

martinealison said...

Une magnifique et généreuse grappe de fleurs... J'apprécie particulièrement les nuances de couleurs de chacune de ces fleurs et la manière que chacune tombe...
Une très belle peinture et une aussi jolie publication.
gros bisous

Autumn Leaves said...

Beautiful job, Nan. I once painted these flowers from a Wet Canvas challenge. I'd never seen nor heard of them before I came across that particular challenge. I also enjoyed hearing your thoughts on the canvas sheets vs. stretched canvas. I think I have one or two canvas sheets myself and I'm not quite sure what I'll do with them yet.

Nan Johnson said...

Thank you so much! I'm glad that others like these flowers as well! I just checked again this evening, but the plants haven't sprouted in my garden - yet! A few more warm days like today though, and they'll be up in no time! Thanks again.

Virginia Floyd said...

Lovely flowers! I tried to grow bleeding hearts once, but they didn't like our hot summer. And good for you for moving out of your comfort zone!

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