My approach to this, and all of my watercolor paintings is to be loose, spontaneous and full of expression. With my color choices, composition and brush movements I can passionately paint and express what I feel and what I see. The irises in this case, served only as a reference as I painted them with expressive freedom. I do not draw beforehand but dive right in with DANIEL SMITH Watercolors on dry, unstretched 300lb watercolor paper.

Utilizing hard and soft edges and a variety of DANIEL SMITH pigments, I can show the drama and delicacy of a simple bunch of irises. The fluidity of the fragile petals entangled with deep green stems comes through in the final painting.

I paint from life – never from a photograph, I believe this lends to a more emotionally charged painting.

I started this painting laying down the feel of the composition, with an emphasis on the diagonal from of the front stem. I used Xanh ô liu, Xanh lam Ultramarine Và Màu vàng Cadmium trung bình.

I also started to indicate the placement of the irises, letting Quinacridone màu tím Và Xanh lam fuse on the paper. I dropped Vàng Quinacridone in some wet areas and let the colors flow into each other.

In this painting there was a lot of pushing and pulling of darks and lights, varying the blues and greens and suggesting, without telling all, what I saw and more importantly what I felt when I looked at these flowers. i am very inspired by the Master Impressionists.

After I let the painting dry, I went back into it with more defining shapes and forms. Olive Green mixed well with Ultramarine Blue in defining the dark stems. I really wanted to show off the blues, so I went in heavy with the Cerulean Blue, Quinacridone Purple and Màu xanh coban tím. I utilized Cadmium Yellow medium Hue and Quinacridone Gold to indicate iris centers and suggest background.

As I prefer watercolor painting to express myself, i need a product that I can depend on. Watercolors by DANIEL SMITH never let me down, they mix together terrifically, there’s a huge choice of vibrant and original colors and they are lightfast. Since I do not premix colors on my palette, I like knowing how they will perform on the paper.