Pansies. Plein air with Elena Bazanova
I'll start with a light drawing. After finishing with the drawing, I will wet the sheet of paper well from the back, spread it on the pad and wet the fragments of the sheet from the front, in place of the central buds. I take a mixture of Turquoise-rose mist + Lilac mist and apply the paint with bold strokes on moisturised fragments, I let the colour spread. Working with petals, I add a little more or a little less Turquoise-rose mist or Lilac mist getting various colour overflows a little more blue or violet, for the depth of shadows I add Blue shadows to the mixture. Particles of pigments of granulating paints disintegrate into different shades, smoothly flowing into each other, forming a soft and mesmerizing pattern.
violet pansies
white pansies
leaves
Next, I move on to the green leaves surrounding the background of the flowers. In the depths, in the shadow part, the background is colder and darker in tone, so I take the Yellowish green mist + Blue shadows blend, and at the edges I use Yellowish green mist to add some Naples Yellow Light or Turquoise-rose mist, achieving a warmer or colder shade. I make the few remaining buds the part of the background, denoting them with blue-violet colour spots. On white buds, I draw only shadows, leaving intact paper in the light, this brings lightness and freshness to work. For white petal shadows, I use a light blend of Naples Yellow Light + Turquoise-rose mist.
The granulation effect, which creates a unique texture of the paint layer, allows me to avoid detail and greatly reduces work time. Detail and work with layers would be very difficult to implement within the framework of the plein air, where the weather can change dramatically and lighting will change, where it is difficult to quickly dry the surface of the sheet because it is impossible to use a hairdryer. In the plein air, you need to work quickly and I am glad that paints with a granulation effect help me a lot in this.