Sunday, June 3, 2012

For Helen

My grandma's best friend, Helen, passed away last week.  She was a spitfire up to the last and I'm very grateful I had the opportunity to visit with her while I was in Texas over the holidays.

She had white hair and beautiful blue eyes, and I always remember her loving pastels.  Her living room was bright and airy with white wicker and florals.  So I made this piece for my grandma, in memory of her.  I'll do my best to carry on her feisty ways.


I did a watercolor wash for the background and used different colors of Canson Mi Teintes papers for the flowers, stems and leaves.


The stamens are yellow trace paper, and some of the petals have watercolor washes or prismacolor pencil details.


The lettering is a lighter colored paper with prismacolor pencil over the top for a little bit of texture and depth.


I think you can see that I was influenced by Carol Gearing's Paper Cut Florals, Just as I was back during my wedding for my paper flower wall.


I was pretty happy with this frame job, I just have to find a decent frame first and size the artwork to it.  The other way round is very difficult.  This way sort of limits my layout and such, but the end result is cleaner.