
Mountain Flowers. Watercolor by Rachel Murphree
Here’s a piece that I started en plein air, painting from a plant in the entryway of a hotel while on vacation with my family. It was beautiful but it was all alone in a bed of rock; not a whole lot of atmosphere. I was out there several mornings painting and chatting with people that walked by.

Mountain Flowers early stage. Watercolor by Rachel Murphree
I wanted to show you several steps in this process . At first I went in too dark trying to work speedily because of trying to squeeze in painting with family activities. Rather than having the plant alone, I suggested foliage and blooms behind it.

step 2 of the process of negative painting to define the foliage
When I got to the point where the foliage seemed ok, I still felt it looked blah. The stems were lifted out and suggested but it seemed dark on bottom, light on top. I have recently read a(nother) book on composition and I thought, wonder if an “L” shape composition of darks would work?
So that’s when I added the dark background on the top left. Do you think it improved it?
Here’s the photo I took before starting. Kind of ho hum. not even nice light and shadow.
Thanks for stopping by. I enjoy hearing from you. Stay tuned in September when I do the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge once again!
wow…..I can’t get over how you took a boring clump of flowers in the midst of landscaping rock and transform it to such a beautiful painting! smart choice in bringing in another dark element to your comp. very smart indeed! 🙂
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oh Margaret, thanks! I am much happier with the final product than I was at the beginning of the process!
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I think darkening up the background was a great choice. Very nice work!
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Amber, thank you!
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Well done Rachel! Thanks for sharing!
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So pretty!!! 🌼
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