Photo Realism

White is not really a color I need to remember
but sometimes intricate shapes do need
clarifying.

I have little interest in photo realism as a painting approach, but I have learned in my projects related to flowers to use the camera to record the colors of my subjects. While in Missouri last month to draw flowers I also took photographs of many of them to help me recall with some semblance of reality the color of the blossoms and sometimes the shades of green in stems and leaves. 

I had a good time drawing and then photographing flowers in four different locations even though I looked at several others. I wonder now if I didn't have my camera with me then. 

Shades of green often escape my memory.
Now I have this guide.

In a couple of weeks I'll start making the pieces of mixed media art for my Wildflowers of Missouri project working from my drawings. I'm not interested in providing technical, scientific drawings but rather to move toward some kind of abstraction related to the flowers. I'll follow the advice of one of my teachers suggested about plants. "Draw them over and over again until they quit being flowers and become lines." That's my goal and I'll use the photos for color references as I move into this project. Probably you will see some of them in this blog and hopefully soon.

Just this closing note: below you can see photos of my consulting companions during my treks across meadows and into the woods.

Denver, 2015