Tonight I’m revisiting a white orchid painting that I originally painted back in March. I was going to go out and purchase a new orchid but after looking at the original photos I decided to work from them.
I didn’t just work from one photo tonight but I used photo shop to setup several different photos which I could reference for the white orchid painting.
Here is my setup, I can easily flip through all my different photos on my iPad. The only issue was the glare coming off the screen of the iPad. I was tempted to print out the photo to reduce the glare but printing out photos on regular printer paper, it is all I have, would be terrible.
Here is the original photo, I’m very happy with the photo actually. So happy in fact that I’m going to revisit the white orchid painting again soon as I don’t think it captures the subtleness of the photo.
Here I over exposed the photo so I could see more details in the darker areas of the photo.
Here I have under exposed the photo so I can get a better since of how the lighter parts of the orchid transition in value.
Photoshop is wonderful for breaking down a photo in basic shapes. I used the cutout filter to reduce all detail of the photo and get a good since of the composition as well as the general masses.
This dry brush filter is very similar to the cutout filter in photoshop but it brings in a bit more detail.
Tonights session of the white orchid painting went well, but I’m certain I can improve upon it. I have a great foundation laid in so working into this when its a bit drying will allow me to do things like light glazes to make the painting more subtle and delicate.