Abstract floral illustrations

Preliminary flower bouquet sketch (above) and work in progress below  

One of my recent freelance projects has been a commission for some abstract watercolour floral bouquets.  Whilst not to give too much away, here is a little preview of one of the bouquets as a sketch prior to painting, and another bouquet interpreted in a freestyle, washy, watercolour style.

It's a freelance project I've been quite frustrated with - I loved the brief I received and was really excited to be painting in a medium and style I love.  The trouble is I had a really clear picture in my mind of what I wanted to achieve and how I wanted to capture the floral bouquets - but my hand just didn't quite paint what my mind envisaged!

I'm quite a perfectionist and it's really bothered me that I didn't quite create the artwork how I imagined.  I'd like to rewind time and having painted all the artwork once, give it another go but this time with the advantage of knowing where I went wrong.  I guess that's a bit like life in general really!...   

Inky florals

Inky florals painted with food colour!

It's been a busy few weeks and amongst other things I've had a few freelance jobs on the go.  One of which has been an inky floral design for textile application.  The final artwork was to be black and white, but I painted the original artwork using blue food colour! 

I experimented with a few different inks, but I really liked the effect of the food colour and decided to paint the flowers using the blue food colour, and alter the finished artwork to black and white on the computer.

I've painted with food colour before - and it gives surprisingly good results!  You can mix the four basic colours they come in (yellow, blue, red and green) and the added bonus is you can bleach out food colour, which you can't do with many professional artists inks.  It's amazing the results you can acheive from a little bit of experimentation with a kitchen cupboard staple.