First Iris Flowers

The rain season is over and the sunlight of the Spring invited some gorgeous iris flowers into my front-yard. 

They popped up almost over night bringing so much joy with their spiky leaves and pointy buds. 

As many times as I painted iris flowers I probably would never be tired of doing so. 

This time I grabbed a hand made paper not even aware what a challenge it might be. Quite thick and grainy this paper absorbs water fast; it does not allow a sharp edge, and the paint dries very slow. Yet, there was an advantage painting on this hand made paper. Besides having a feeling that this paper was never processed by any machine and people who made it created it with love and care; besides that, I had to act according to the situation, making decisions quickly and accept the unpredictable outcome. 

The fist painting (above) was painted in impressionistic botanical style. The blue iris flowers and yellow iris buds are pronounced and the background is melting away in a nice wet-on-wet wash.

The next painting I started with totally different approach. I painted the background first leaving a free space for the flowers to pop. And then I filled the yellow of the petals to add a shape and color to them:

The difference in the paper plays a tremendous role in the painting quality and view appearance. 

Previously, I only painted flowers on etheir Arches or Fabriano watercolor paper applying realistic techniques:

And even though the factory produced paper allowed more control of the medium, I still loved trying the handmade watercolor paper to expand my horizons and my "Iris Flowers Garden"

 :0)

As always, more flowers are on

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