Blossoms

Hi all,
I just thought I'd share a couple of my latest digital paintings with you. The first is of some cherry blossom, which I have done against my usual black background. I use a black background to put all the focus onto the flowers.

My wife, who is probably my biggest critic said, "The flowers look like marshmallows and the stalks look like chocolate."
Very nice indeed, I didn't know if I should hang it on the wall or eat it. I like it even though it does look a bit plastic. That is probably the only drawback with digital art, it can make paintings look too perfect and sterile.

I was going to show you the video of how I painted this blossom, but due to trying to save storage space on my ipad, I very annoyingly deleted it by mistake. All I'm left with is the jpeg image you see above,

To put things right I thought I'd have another go at some blossom. It just so happened that the crab apple tree in our garden was just coming out so I took a few photos of it. I had to borrow the bee but I though it would give it a bit of life.

For this painting I decided to do away with the black background and give it a more natural look.

Given that this is my first painting of a bee, I like it a lot. The leaves fade into the background just has I intended and I like the three focal points of the flowers and the bee.
However not everybody thinks the same. A couple of people have commented that they think the leaves should be darker and more pronounced and that the focal point is at the top which makes the composition top heavy.

Now it may have been better if the bee was in the bottom lower third so that it looked as if it might fly into the picture rather than out of it, but then I wouldn't have got those beautiful buds. And does it matter? Do we always have to have the point of focus on thirds. Who's rules are they?

Regarding the leaves. Yes I could have made them darker and made them more prominent, but I was looking for a painterly effect.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not moaning about the comments I love having them it all helps to make us better artists through awareness.

Unlike the blossom at the top of the page, I managed to create a video of how I painted the blossom and the bee, here is the link.

If you enjoy the video please consider subscribing. It is free and you won't even get bothered with notifications if you don't click the bell icon.

I will have another video for you soon.