Tag: calla lilies

Calla Lilies in oil pastel this time

Published on by kmgunnartLeave a comment

If this image of my most-recent calla lilies painting looks familiar, it’s because I used the same reference photo as I did for the tinted charcoal calla lilies drawing over the summer (of 2022). This time I flipped the image (reversed it) so the front calla lily opens the other direction, and then I omitted the third flower in the back. I did this one in oil pastel, and I really do love working with my oil pastels, so of course it just made sense to do a calla lilies piece with them.

mockup of Calla Lilies 4 framed and hanging on a wall
mockup of this oil pastel art piece framed and on a wall

Also, I used my Arches oil paper for the first time on this piece, and love it. It is not a standard size, even in metric, but I figure Arches does that to give a bit of room to tape the paper to a board if that is how you like to work. It’s likely meant to be practice paper for oil paints.

First, a quick confession: I did this over a year ago, as you can likely tell from the date on the signature. It is now almost a year and a half later that I finally get to writing it up. Maybe I’ll do better in 2024? It could happen.

In-progress photos

Since I decided to flip the original image, I needed to do the basic drawing from scratch again – which is not a hardship for me. I did my usual 3 by 3 grid to make sure everything fits on the page as I want it to do, and then started on the background because that would still be my darkest dark on the image. First I used my darkest purple, then my darkest blue.

starting the calla lilies painting with the dark purple background
starting with a dark purple background to contrast with the white calla lilies

I seem to be missing a couple or more in-progress snapshots. I was so certain I had more, but not even Windows 10 search can find them. To summarize the missing photos, I worked on the greenery after the background, then worked on the flowers last. Then I went over everything again, to even up how thickly I put the oil pastel on – especially for the calla lilies.

Calla Lilies 4, two white calla lilies in oil pastel on blue-purple background with green leaves and stems.
Calla Lilies 4, oil pastel on oil paper, original available

Purchase the original artwork or get art prints

As of posting, the original artwork is available to purchase through Daily Paintworks, which handles the transaction through PayPal and just makes it easier on both of us. The actual size is 31.0 cm by 41.1 cm, which is approximately 12-3/16 inches by 16-3/16 inches. Not a standard size here in the US, so it will likely need a custom matting to fit a standard frame or a custom frame if you aren’t fond of using matboard. I sealed this piece with matte finish Mod Podge to prevent smearing.

For art prints, I like Pixels which is part of Fine Art America. You can order a wall print from as small as 6 x 8 inches up to as large as 43 x 60 inches. It is also available on various home decor items, stationary, and of course puzzles. If I had a cat-free zone, I would happily get puzzles of my artwork, but more on that thought later.

Apparel and accessories with this art printed on them

When it comes to artwork on apparel, my mother and sister both like Redbubble’s print shop. They have a lot of options available, and since this pastel painting is vertically aligned, it fits on most of them. When my sister said she was trying to decide which apparel product to get this image printed on, I whipped up a simple vertical video to hopefully help her choose. She ended up buying the A-line dress.

Just a cute vertical video to highlight the RedBubble apparel products I like best

Calla Lilies 3 drawing in tinted charcoal

Published on by kmgunnart11 Comments

I’ve been battling a summer slump, but Sunday afternoon it suddenly cleared and I grabbed my rather-quick graphite sketch of three calla lilies in my sketchbook and decided to clean up the lines and finish the drawing in tinted charcoal.

When my husband heard the familiar rasp of a pencil moving across paper, he got up to see what I was working on, then he started snapping photos of the piece to record the process and progress layer by layer.

Starting with the darkest dark

first in-progress photo, starting with the background
starting with the background, using a dark blue tinted charcoal

For this drawing, I decided I would use black on the background, for at least one layer. I started with the background, because it helps me to get the darkest portion on the white paper first. While I am not sure this will explain it adequately to the nonartists out there, when starting with a white blank page it helps me to have the opposite extreme of the value scale to then be able to visualize all the middle values once the two extremes are there.

darkening the background with a layer of actual black charcoal
darkening the background with a layer of actual black charcoal

It took three layers to get the rich, deep dark I wanted: one layer of dark blue, one layer of black, then one layer of dark purple. I should probably point out that even when I work with only traditional black charcoal, it still takes about three layers to achieve the contrast in values the Italians call chiaroscuro (literally translated as “light-dark”) that makes a good charcoal drawing so eye-catching.

Adding the leaves and stems with green tinted charcoal

starting to shade in the leaves and stems with green tinted charcoal
starting to add in the green tinted charcoal

Once the background looked dark enough, after three color layers (dark blue, black, dark purple) it was time to start on the leaves and stems. I used the medium green from my big set of tinted charcoal, and tried to keep it from being too dark so it didn’t blend into the background. I wanted the greenery to only cover the middle range of values.

Starting to shade the white calla lilies

beginning shading the white calla lilies with a light purple
starting to shade in the white calla lilies

Even before I had the greens shaded in completely, I decided to start putting in the shadows on the white calla lilies. Shadows on white flowers are often either a blue tint or a purple tint, and I chose the lighter purple (labeled lavender) for this drawing, mostly to contrast nicely with the yellow ochre of the main flower’s stamen. Purple and yellow are opposite on the color wheel, and really look nice, as a look through my portfolio of work will show. (See Electric Yellow Rose for a good visual.)

adding the yellow ochre to the center of the main calla lily
Adding the yellow ochre to the main calla lily, and it is starting to really look nice

Finishing the drawing

At this point, it was just a matter of intensifying some of the colors, since the tinted charcoal set is more about subtle colors than bright, high-chroma or saturated color. It’s a bit of a seesaw, where I added more tinted charcoal to one section, then look to make sure the rest are in balance with it. Rinse and repeat however many times necessary – and this time it didn’t take as much fiddling and fussing to get to a point where I decided to call it done.

Calla Lilies 3, drawing in tinted charcoal, prints available
Calla Lilies 3, drawing in tinted charcoal in sketchbook, prints available

Since this is in my well-worn sketchbook, the original is not for sale. The corners on this sketchbook are quite rounded at this point. The scan came out very nicely, so prints are available through my Pixels store, while the various apparel and accessories are up at my RedBubble shop.

I have already started a similar piece, this time using my oil pastels (which is just about the polar opposite of charcoal drawing!) on some larger paper. I am still thinking about trying to do this in watercolor at some point as well, just not sure when. Calla lilies are just visually interesting for me, and I confess I have fallen in love with this flower since the first time I did the white on black drawings last year.