Art Elements July Flowers Theme Reveal Blog Hop

Welcome to the July Theme: Flowers Reveal Blog hop. It was my turn to pick the challenge for the month, and I was curious to see what kind of flowers were in bloom now in various places in the world and how artists would find inspirations from them or from flowers in general.

My inspiration with flowers is planting flowers that are easy to take care of, mostly native plants, that help support our local ecosystems. Then comes the colors and textures of plants. I just love it.

Coneflowers (bloom July & August, and seeds provide food in winter).
Insects are plentiful in my gardens.
Mostly native plants in my garden with a few ornamental shrubs.
Inspirations, Water Color Paints and a full day of creativity just to experiment.
Enjoying just playing with paints. Donut (my cat) was curious for a short while of what I was up to.

I worked on a total of 3 watercolor pages because I realized that I had to not muddy the colors by working wet on wet. So by keeping occupied with layering on three pages, I got to figure things out. It was a blissful day of just playing and seeing what happened.

Page 1 started with just the centers and the pink.
Page 2 started by painting green on the background then the flowers. Realizing the petals were dark I spent some time layering water and white colors and dabbing off excess.
Page 3 was my attempt to look at an actual photo and try to follow the visual lines. I really did not want to stress over things and completely just went with it. I had fun, but man could I use some foundation classes on what I am actually doing. Either that or just practice a bit more and pay attention to details.
Here is page 3 overall. I added some more flowers and petals just to fill the page a bit more.

I had thoughts of also making a needle felted coneflower and just laughed at the results. I stopped at the cones because the idea I had really wasn’t working out. Here are some pics to explain my thoughts and I hope to figure things out a bit better soon.

A reverse needle pulls the wool from the inside to the exterior of the piece to increase the fuzz.
I felted the under layers on my second attempt a lot more, this made the pulling with the reverse needle more succssful.
For my third and fourth attempt, I used a Romney blend fiber (a bit longer than 1 & 2 above). Really, these are not what I had in mind, and I trimmed up the excess hairs, kept giggling that they reminded me of fuzzy bits instead of cones of the cone flowers (cone flowers get very pointy as they age). Maybe if I had to make a bunch of pussywillows this would be a great technique.

Thanks for taking time to cruise through this post. I really had fun just experimenting this time around.

Please take some time and look at the wonderful things people are creating and contributing to this theme by visiting these artists blogs (if you are having issues leaving comments, please try using google chrome as your browser).

You can also see and participate yourself via social media by using the hashtags: #AEThemeChallenge and #AEFlowers

Here is a list of our Visiting Artists:
Alysen
Cat
Divya
Evie and Beth
Jill
Hope
Kathy
Linda
Louise
Martha
Melissa
Michelle
Rozantia
Sarah
Sarajo
Tammy

And our Art Elements Blog Contributors:
Caroline
Cathy
Claire
Jenny
Laney
Lesley
Marsha
(you are here)
Susan

Comments
15 Responses to “Art Elements July Flowers Theme Reveal Blog Hop”
  1. Jill Egan says:

    Marsha, your cone flowers are very pretty, you reminded me of when we lived in Cheshire , I had a huge clump in my garden .

  2. Kathy Lindemer says:

    Your photographs and garden are beautiful. Thank you for providing a wonderful theme for July.

  3. Cat says:

    Such beautiful flower pictures, both of the real and your painted ones!
    I think the felted pieces would look great as pussywillows, but there’s something different lurking in the back of my head that they remind me of, I just can’t grasp it at the moment.

  4. Purple coneflowers are one of my favorite flowers. I used to have huge clumps all around my yard in IL. Sadly I haven’t yet planted any here in NC. So that is definitely going on my fall planting list. I love your fun day of experimenting with watercolors. Being a newbie I can relate. There is something so compelling about watercolors that I keep going back and trying, trying, trying. I love all 3 of your pages but your final page you really knocked it out of the park with those flowers. They’re beautiful! As for your felt cones. I think maybe if you add some petals they might work, but otherwise I agree-maybe some pussy willows 😉

  5. Caroline says:

    There’s nothing nicer than watching the insects on flowers in your garden, yours looks stunning with all the flowers! I love your watercolours, it sounds like you had a wonderful day creating those, and I think you should keep going with the felted flowers.

    Thanks so much for a wonderful theme, it’s been fun taking part!

  6. Thanks for a great theme. I love all the flower photos you shared. I took flower photos with my phone throughout the month with the intention of sharing on my blog but cannot get them off my phone because, apparently, I’m supposed to buy a new phone every two years and not hold onto the same one for 6 years. Anyway, your painted flowers are brilliant. And I wonder what you will do with those felted bits since you’ve decided not to use them for cone flowers.

  7. Laney Mead says:

    Your garden is beautiful. I love an abundance of flowers that attract bees and butterflies. I like your watercolour experiments they are lovely and vibrant. Thank you for the challenge this month it has been fun 😀

  8. Painting the same thing in three different ways – I should try that! I like page 3 🙂 And the cones can become part of a felted bouquet or garden with time!

  9. Alysen says:

    Thank you for a great theme Marsha!
    I like seeing your watercolor studies and especially like #3 also, though the freestyle almost pinwheels catch my eye also. I can see your ‘cones’ as pussywillows, definitely.

  10. Jenny says:

    Great theme – and I am glad you had some time to play! I love the second watercolor. Maybe you need to start playing with the coneflower shape and wet felting!

  11. CraftyHope says:

    First, I want to thank you for the flower inspiration. You prompted me to grab a lingering supply as well as to use up some of the miscellanea in my craft room. It was much needed! Thank you!

    As for your paintings, I think they’re really great. I wish I had the skills you have with watercolor, but then I wouldn’t enjoy yours as much as I do I suppose. Wonderfully done!

  12. Sarajo Wentling says:

    Thanks for a great challenge theme, Marsha! I love your watercolor experiments (and your studio helper!!)… so fun. It’s so nice to give yourself time just to play. I totally spaced the part about what’s blooming in my area. I may have to see what I can do to fix that. 🙂

  13. Marsha, love that you’re starting to play with watercolors! And I think a felted coneflower is in your future, you just have to work it out, and I know you will! I am intriqued by the reverse technique you used, seems to interesting! Thanks for a great theme!

  14. Thanks for the great theme Marsha. I always enjoy the photos you share of your garden. I like your water color flowers. The felt comes remind me of Pussywillows!

  15. Michelle says:

    Wow! The photos of your garden are spectacular. So much inspiration there. I love your paintings.

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