Amazing Magnolia

At first I thought of throwing this painting because when I was doing its background it did not turn out what I wanted it to be. Fortunately, I decided to continue working on it and see what will happen. The outcome is not really that bad. The flower turned out beautiful though I am not really satisfied with its background. The painting is not perfect but this is how every artist learns, knowing what is wrong from his/her work.

I used a reference photo in doing this painting. When spring began this year I wanted to go around and look for magnolia flowers so that I could take pictures of them. Last Sunday, we went to the Arboretum Port-Bulten in De Lutte, and there we saw magnolia trees with flowers. I took some pictures and then we walked around to enjoy the sunny weather. Thereafter we decided to drive to Garden Center G. uit het Broek in De Lutte/Oldenzaal which is opened that day. While driving along the way to the garden center, I was checking where I saw the magnolia tree when we were on our way to the Arboretum. Approaching the garden center, I saw again the towering tree full of flowers in front of a beautiful house. We parked at the center's parking area and went inside to buy some plants for our terrace. We bought 2 pots of France Geraniums and a pot of pink hyacinth. Before leaving the garden center, we walked back to the magnolia tree nearby and took some pictures of its beautiful and pinkish flowers that were hanging on the lower branches. I used two of these pictures as basis for this painting.

The size of the image is 24 x 30 cm.

Claude Monet's house

For this painting, I used a reference photo I took during a visit to the house and garden of the famous impressionist painter Claude Monet in Giverny, France. We were there in October last year purposely to see the place. We were informed then that the best period of the year to visit the place is during summer when the flowers are in their growing and blooming stage. One disadvantage however, during summer is that the place is very busy because of the many tourists and students visiting the place. We were there in the fall, so most of the flowers were either in their wilting stage or some were totally gone. Anyhow we promise ourselves then that we will visit the place again during the flowering season.

The size of this painting is 30x40cm, and in watercolor.