Sunflowers and Irises

Sunflowers and Irises
26 x 16 Watercolor Painting
by Pat Fiorello
SOLD

I recently created this painting which was commissioned by a client who has several of my oil paintings. She was redecorating an area of her home and had seen a painting of mine which had sunflowers and irises but was already sold. She asked if I could create something similar in watercolor for a space that would need a 26 x 16 painting allowing for an additional few inches for matting and framing to fit in the space perfectly.  

I went back to some earlier photo's I had of a bouquet I had arranged of sunflowers and irises and then in photoshop created several different compositional ideas for my client to consider. 

First I had to adjust the size of the original photo to be proportional to the ultimate size of the painting (see light grey area added on original photo on right) .

Some  options were tabletop including the full vase and shadows, somewhere closer in,  on some I "whited out" some of the unnecessary foliage in the background so the the shape of the iris would be clearer.  With the paintbrush tool I added in more of the lacy foliage that my client said she liked.

 I find photoshop a helpful tool to share concepts with clients to give them a ROUGH visual idea of where you are headed. It is one thing to use words to explain what you are envisioning, but often people have a hard time imagining what something might look like. Or  maybe their idea of a dark background and your idea of a dark background might be very different- so visually showing them is helpful to make sure you're on the same page and there are no surprises when you deliver the finished work. This is especially important with watercolor where it is not very easy to make major compositional changes once a painting is done. Also, in the photoshop design phase upfront, you can pretty quickly and easily make design changes or give options based on feedback. This way you and your client have a clear understanding of where you are headed and you increase the odds that you will have a satisfied customer.