Impressionistic Flowers

Impressionism was developed in the mid-to-late 19th century in France and describes a style of painting that provides characterizations of small, visible brushstrokes that offer the bare impression of form, unblended color and an emphasis on the accurate depiction of natural light. Casey creates many paintings that include this style with impressionistic flowers such as her Cow Painting and various paintings of flowers in a vase.

Making impressionistic flowers are fun to create and people often think they are challenging, but they are not at all. You just need to know a few techniques in order to create them.  The ones that look like roses begin by mixing a tiny bit of black with the color you want to make the rose for the base color.  You can use a flat paint brush that is under a half inch or a round brush to make the rose. It is important to remember that the larger you make these flowers, the harder they are to make, because then you have to include more detail. If they’re about half dollar size  or smaller, they are a lot easier.

As the tutorial teaches, you will start with making the shape of the flower with the darker base color. Then you will clean your brush off and put your flower color on both sides of your brush and dip the tip in white to highlight.  You will begin to make your impressionistic flower by starting with the parentheses. Using the paint brush vertically the skinny side of it and then you’re going to make another parenthesis either on the top or the bottom making sure your pressure is very light, then it goes harder and then you pull off. This is where people make their mistakes… A lot of people like to do this and connect them around. We don’t want them to connect at all.   The flower really comes to life when you use your smaller round brush and put the centers of the flower in with black.

To make a different type of flower, you will start by mixing green with a little bit of black for the stem. Using your script liner brush, add a small amount of water to the paint so that you are able to make a thin stem.  Then moving to your round brush, pick up purple paint and dip the tip in white.  If you have a ton of white, just tap it off. Then I start taping small dots in bundles to represent the petals.  These filler flowers really add to paintings and come out beautifully.  Once you have your bundles in, you can add little dashes to represent tiny stems connecting to the stem from the bundles.

We can’t wait to see your impressionistic flowers. Please share them with us on Facebook at Casey K HQ!