In our FIRST warm up we will warm up by exploring a variety of colours and mark making techniques. We begin without a plan, playing and marking up the canvas. Not only will we explore with painting in layers, but we will also experiment with different mediums! We will continue to add layers to bring it all together, finishing with a large colourful bouquet in a vase!
Artistic Meditations on Beauty and Time
Hyper-realistic painter Pieter Wagemans has a passion for perfection. Combining classical techniques with a deep-seated fascination with the botanical world, the Belgian artist creates beautiful flower paintings that capture the sensory beauty of living blooms.
Wagemans’s realism oil painting compositions give everlasting life to primula flowers clustered in a wicker basket, to butter-yellow roses spilling out of an ornate silver box, and to red tulips that look as though they could be plucked out of a vase.
“In art, flowers have long been a symbol of aesthetics, friendship, love, decoration, and veneration—but also one of transience,” Wagemans says. “As a fine arts painter, it’s a real challenge to paint flowers with the same colours, boldness, and fine details that occur in nature.”
During the 1960s, when Wagemans was 15, he began his artistic studies at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. A turning point in his education came when he saw an exhibition dedicated to 17th and 18th-century Dutch Masters, featuring the grand floral compositions of artists such as Jan Davidsz de Heem and Jan van Huysum.
“I was moved by the baroque compositions, the incredibly realistic renderings of flowers, and the overwhelming impression of nature displaying its treasures,” Wagemans says. “I wanted to study and emulate these techniques.”
Over the decades that followed, Wagemans followed the centuries-old methods of the Old Masters such as the alla prima (‘wet-on-wet’) painting technique, in which a composition is built up through layers of oil paint, each applied before the previous daubing has dried on the canvas.
“The difference between my paintings and those of the Old Masters is that my compositions are seasonally related; they mixed the flowers of different seasons together, such as tulips with roses,” Wagemans says. “As a hyper-realistic painter, I will never paint a flower from memory or fantasy.”
Blooming marvellous: a look at flowers in art
I walk through a world coming into bloom, colours bursting forth from the earth, pausing to admire daffodils, crocuses, blossom on branches. Such small yet infinitely varied and intricate phenomena as flowers have been captured in art throughout the ages, and as spring dawns and British Summer Time/Daylight Savings Time is on the horizon, now seems the time to focus our attention on flowers.
One of the first flowers to announce itself after winter is, of course, the daffodil, and artists, writers and poets have had a long love affair with this beauty, from Wordsworth’s immortal image of a ‘host of golden daffodils’ to Vincent van Gogh’s equally timeless Bowl With Daffodils. There is an abundance of artwork of daffodils in their natural environment, and also plucked and brought inside, in vases.
Some of my favourites of daffodils in the landscape include Daffodils by the unknown R. S. and Daffodils in Long Grass by Helen Firth who was active in the late twentieth century.
Daffodils prove to be an excellent still-life subject when they are indoors with no wind blowing them over, as in Still Life, Daffodils by an unknown artist, and Still Life of Daffodils in a Blue and White Vase by Lily Yorke.
I love the use of a blurred effect in Louisa Ellen Perman’s Daffodils in a Vase which creates a haunting atmosphere.
Also powerful is Edward Atkinson Hornel’s painting Daffodils, which smudges the colour yellow and the glorious Daffodils by the late Michele Elizabeth Field.
Then there are daffodils depicted with other flowers too, such as the elegant painting Four Natives of Ancient Britain, Daffodils, Narcissi, Lily of the Valley and Bluebells by Alfred Balding, and the more modern Daffodils and Grape Hyacinths by Vanessa Bowman.
I am always delighted to see the first crocuses of the year and there are some captivating paintings of crocuses in the Art UK archive.
A Day among the Crocuses by Gladys Cooper captures such delight with a group of women in a field of crocuses dressed in the same colours as the environment. There are artists who have adopted a broad focus in their depictions of flowers, such as this painting which shows crocuses at some distance in a landscape, whilst other artists zoom in on the particular parts of a flower in all their intricacy and detail, such as A Crocus: Entire Flowering Plant with Separate Bulb and Floral Segments by an unknown artist.
The crocuses in Crocus by Raymond C. Booth are so lifelike you feel as if you could reach out a hand and touch them in actuality.
Two are open and three remain closed in bud, filling the heart with anticipation.
Some of the most wonderful paintings of flowers are abstract ones which throw into high relief the gloriousness of their colours and shapes.
Purple Flowers by an unknown artist is a sheer delight, with the artist and viewer feasting on the colour of these flowers, and so too Red Flowers, also by an unknown artist, an extravaganza of colour.
The painter Dorothy Mead also uses a palette of abstract reds to excellent effect in this piece, simply titled Flowers.
Then there is a beautiful series of Silk Flowers by an unknown artist, which elegantly simplify their shape, appearing to use paint on silk as an effective method of capturing the fine texture of flowers.
I also love Night Flowers by John Maxwell with its almost abstract use of bright colours and blackness.
Flowers are not only a delight for the eyes, but in some instances also the tastebuds too.
The wonderful watercolour painting Self-Heal and Field Bindweed by Arthur Edwin Baker depicts two flowers next to each other. Intrigued by this ‘Self-Heal’, I research more and learn that the young leaves and stems of this edible flower, also known as the ‘heal-all’, can be used in salads, soups and stews, and it most commonly flourishes in waste places as well as woodland edges.
There are flowers which have accumulated a wealth of symbolism in cultures around the world and on Art UK there are some fine depictions of the lotus flower, such as the elegant paintings by the nineteenth-century artist Marianne North, Foliage, Flowers and Fruit of the Sacred Lotus in Java or The Sacred Lotus or Pudma.
Much of the mythology and meaning that has bloomed from the lotus flower draws on the fact that a lotus flower grows through muddy water yet still blossoms, a reminder to endure the hardships of life. (‘Just like the lotus we too have the ability to rise from the mud, bloom out of the darkness and radiate into the world’ is one quote from an unknown source.)
Amid the cheer and joy of these paintings, there are those which are haunting and eerie, which hint at the fleetingness of flowers – that they will soon be dead – such as Nature Morte by Andrew Mansfield, in which a vase of flowers sits swamped by a dark night. And yet there is also a sense that, after their death and the winter season, those seeds in the earth will once again bloom in the spring.
The paradox of forever capturing such fleeting entities as flowers in such beautiful artwork serves to show the enduring power of painting.
Anita Sethi, journalist, writer and critic
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FINAL LESSON
In our final lesson, we will paint a 30×40” canvas using warm yellows greens and neutrals. We will use a roller to paint our base layer, then large brushes to create big loose abstract flowers. During this lesson it is time for you to explore all of the different mark making and painting tips we have learned! Be creative! Choose colors that fit the space you are creating for! Keep thing loose and light, as always!
BONUS MATERIAL
On top of having six beautiful lessons on painting big, beautiful floral paintings for your home, Nikol will also share with you some really important pointers! She will be walking you through the process of choosing palettes for your home, and different photographs that will share how a painting might look in the home. Nikol will also be sharing with you how to install hanging hardware so that your paintings will hang securely on the walls of your home! Get ready to create beautiful art for your walls that will have all of your guests asking where you purchased your home decor!
COURSE IS OPEN!
Prerecorded – Work at Your Own Pace
My name is Nikol Wikman I live in Victoria, BC Canada with my husband and two children. I have been an artist for as long as I can remember. I loved art class in school and spent hours upon hours sketching. As I grew up I experimented with different creative avenues. I tried sewing, sculpting, took a stained glass course, beaded, made jewelry. Anything to feed the creative yearning in my soul. In my 20’s I decided to try painting again (which I hadn’t done since high school). I painted simple pieces for my apartment and loved it! It was so fun to grab a canvas, throw some paint on it and have my own unique piece of art! For a few years I painted here and there but nothing too serious. After my son was born I was struggling a little bit, lonely as a new mom. I decided to make a point of painting (almost) daily. It was one of the best decisions I ever made! In the studio(aka my dining room) I felt like I found myself again! I loved it so much I couldn’t stop.
The process of playing with pure liquid colour does something to my heart that nothing else does. I never get bored of it. When I paint I feel joyful and free!
Eight years later I have painted hundreds(maybe even thousands!) of paintings. I have been able to connect and share my love of art with like minded souls from around the world. I’ve sent paintings to far off places I’ll probably never get to visit myself! I feel so lucky and am grateful everyday for what art has brought into my life.
PRIVATE GROUP JUST FOR YOU!
This course will have a private Facebook group just for you! I will be actively involved with the class via Facebook during the four weeks that the course is open! I am really excited about working through these exercises with each of you!
