I want to start by showing the photo that this painting is based on. The reason I didn’t show it at the beginning is because I wanted to explain the concept of layering and building the painting from nothing. I wanted to do that before there was any idea of what the scene looked like prior.

Here are some photos of the bed these Allium were in. The photos were taken in the Minns garden on Tower Rd at Cornell University. If you ever feel like checking it out, we were there in the first week of June and the garden was beautiful.

One of the things I loved about this planting so much is the simplicity of it. There are only a few key plants here and the contrast is simple and fun. Plus I love ferns. I love ferns a lot. Especially a big patch of them.

This was a neat shot. It features another one of my favorite plants in the back, Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) but we will get those later this year…

So here is where we left off before…

So I began with adding texture to the flower buds. I took the photo to show what a difference it makes. Here I am halfway through one layer of the buds. That took about an hour.

The other half took about an hour too. After that I worked on adding some definition to the stems, the grass on the left side and the shrubs in the right foreground. Those are giving me trouble. I added some more color to the trees in the back too. I decided to define the dark purple blob that was in the back. I was going to leave it all as one shade but it bothered me.

Here is a closeup of the buds. Lots of teeny tiny strokes here. I’m still not finished with these either. Close, but needs one more layer. I’m going to include a video on the Facebook page to show how I do it. I need to figure out how to add videos in here. Sorry.

So that is all for today. I’ll keep working on it. I think I need to look at it for a day or so and figure out how I’m going to finish it.

I prefer to paint landscapes and plants. I’ve had some success with still lives and a portrait or two, but I have always loved landscape paintings. My paintings have always been kind of realistic and kind of brightly skewed. (If that’s the right way to say it?) I love bright colors. Especially in my paintings. That’s just my style.

Thank you for seeing how the Alliums are progressing. I am really grateful to the people who are checking this out. I’m finding I like to explain it more than I thought I would.

Liz