I take pictures of my dahlias closeup then use them to rearrange where they are on the canvas till I am satisfied with the layout before I paint them. These are two of the pictures that have the two largest flowers, so you can see what I mean by moving them around.
I see the beauty of the blooms popping out over a bed full of green leaves and stems somewhat blurry in the background. My eyes see this set of photos this way when I glance at them.
Now the trick will be to decide what amount of detail I want to include in the leaves behind and underneath the flowers. This is the layout sketch for this painting of Dahlias Closeup from our garden before I get the paints out.
With this beautiful yellow rose sketch, I carefully recreated the petals from the photograph and then lay it out on the table right next to where I begin to paint. I also have the actual flower in front of me as I begin to paint so I can get the colors right but the first part is usually dark areas taken from the dark values in the B&W print. My goal is to get the soft light to yellow fading (wet on wet) on each petal surface first and then add in shadow.
I am not going to use mastic to reserve the whites, instead, I plan to be careful to reserve the light areas of the paper. These first three images show the desk setup with the reference materials, paint pallet with brushes. Working on the first three petals establishes which colors seem to work best. After wetting the petal area, I fill my brush with Aureolin Yellow and drag along the darker edge to the center leaving a puddle of color at the center, this one lets other colors wash over it. Using a darker orange-yellow named, New Gamboge, to drop in color where more brilliance in the yellow is desired.
