How my garden grows

First the flowers, then the leaves and then the stems.  In nature it goes the other way, but I'm the creator here, so I get to decide.

Now for a few more do-dads to finish off the center design and then the rim.  I never know what it's going to look like until I'm finished.

Practice, practice, practice

After painting the cabbage rose and the yellow rose, I attempted the challenging parrot tulip.  I painted it twice and wiped it off twice.  Each time it looked like a mish-mash.

 The next time I got my paints out I decided I better practice the tulip a few times.  After painting it twice on the practice board I attempted it again on the plate.  Again I wiped it off, practiced it one more time and finally on the plate again.  Whew!

Completed and begun

I finished the red plate, adding some froo-froo to the design in the middle.  (I tried a row of blue flowers in the trough, as suggested my one of my fans, but then the edge looked too busy and the center still looked empty.)  I hope you like the result.

Now I'm working on a large dark green plate, which I will paint in the Valdres style.  I planned the design on paper and then transferred it to the plate.  Now the fun part.  I get to paint.

Circle of flowers

 

Now that I have completed the border of the plate, I'll have to decide if the center design needs more work.  It seems a little plain to me but I don't want to clutter it up.  I'll have to give this some thought.

What now?

This is where I stop and look.  Are the colors balanced?  Are there "empty" spots in the design that need more embellishment?  What about the border?  Clusters of bold flowers or a delicate row of little ones?

Any suggestions?

Fancy and Fanciful

It's easy to see why these flowers are fun to paint.  The colors are brighter and more varied than in other styles of rosemaling and you can add all kinds of embellishments.

Another new beginning

This time I'm painting a red plate, and while I'm doing the backgrounding, I'll practice some flowers and leaves on my practice board.  I decided to do some "Os" flowers, which are very fancy and fanciful.  They're fun to paint.