At Dawn She Rises
April 21, 2008 by espirit07
at dawn she rises
and emerges from the depth
of a muddy swamp
In this daily painting, using Corel Painter X, my first step was to do an acrylic wash of a deep midnight blue blended with soft dark green for the waters and background. Next, I sketched the lotus flower and lily pads using a soft white and light sage colored pencil. Finishing the sketch, I painted the lily pads in deep sage green and light sage green using watercolor and acrylic brushes. The lotus was painted white and the inside painted orange using an acrylic brush.
Once the main parts of the painting were complete, I closed and re-opened the file in Adobe Photoshop and using the Liquify Filter, I pushed the color of the lily pads and water to create a soft streak effect. I left the flower untouched. I finished with the watercolor filter and adding dots and lighting details in Corel PhotoPaint.
There is nothing quite like maintaining the daily practice to gain perfection. Your lotus flowers are always very beautiful Genece.
Beautiful. Something just occured to me. Is there anyway to find out with the RGB or CMYK number would be for the classic artists colors such as Burnt Sienna, Cerulian Blue, Crimson Red, that sort of thing? My color index has swatches of colors with numbers but no names for those colors. That would be a useful thing to know.
What amazingly beautiful work you do. I love gardening and working with flowers, but I arrange them, bunch them and have various outlets of the sale of fresh flowers including an honesty stall at our front gate. You have captured the beauty of this lotus flower and the other in previous posts. I remember last year we went swimming in the thermal baths of Herviz, in Lake Balaton, Hungary and we just swam amongst such flowers. That will stay in my memory bank forever, I am sure.
Is there anything more pure, more serene, that the lotus?
Just gorgeous. Such an elegant flower, the lotus. And your sharing of your technique is generous indeed.
Vi
So beautiful, Genece. The water swirls from the liquify filter make the water look so real - I remember lying on the dock and watching the river as a child, and enjoying these same sorts of swirls in the water.
Lovely. The lotus has such purity.
I think we all work towards being the lotus, becoming who we really are, rising out of the murk of our backgrounds. This lotus is so beautiful and serene in spite of the muddy swamp it comes from.