Painting Small Wildflowers

This week, we explore the beauty of small wildflowers and find what we can learn from nature when painting them.

I had a small blank canvas that I wanted to paint on before Midsummer. I did it with acrylic instead of oil because acrylic paint dries faster and you don’t have to wait days for the layers to dry.

My idea was simple: wood geraniums – or do you call them cranesbills? In Finnish the plant is called “metsäkurjenpolvi” and they bloom everywhere now in June. We have them in our garden too, but I mostly study them on morning walks. As a child, they were my favorite flowers when it comes to wild flowers.

Even if I sometimes take photos of small wildflowers, I don’t want to paint from reference pictures, but freely. I can check the structure and shapes of flowers or leaves from photos, but if I start copying the exact detail, my expression stiffens. It’s like my head begins to ignore my heart, and that’s never good for art-making.

Starting with Big Brushes

At the beginning of the painting process, I don’t even know exactly what I want to express. The mood of the painting grows little by little and when I start, I’m clumsy and quite careless.

It’s actually pretty quick to make a nice little flower painting if you only think about one plant and don’t aim for anything else. But these days, I don’t want to leave any painting at that level. I want to offer more to look at and combine many observations in the same painting.

Here’s my painting from Day 1 to Day 2. The right lower corner didn’t change much, but the center and the right upper corner changed a lot. And the painting became more detailed.

Some paintings are great with the more abstract and loose touch. But here, I wanted to express the delicacy of small wildflowers and honor their tiny details. I also wanted to make the painting look more natural.

Beautiful Mess with Thin Strokes

Nature is wild and messy. We easily overlook that beautiful mess when we look at wildflowers in a meadow. Our eyes pick out our favorite flowers, and we don’t see all the other plants that are trying to get in the way. Grasses come to the front of the flowers and intersect everywhere. There are endless layers of plants if you look at the view as accurately as possible. Even when looking at this photo, did you notice all that layering?

It seems contradictory that the more romantic and spiritual I want to paint, the more I have to open my eyes to the reality. I need to paint those hays over the pretty wildflowers and let the nature make a beautiful mess in the canvas too.

Small Doses of Conflicting Colors for Flavor

In nature, the colors also get mixed with each other, and there are reflections and conflicting tones. So, even if the number of colors in the painting is limited, you always have to find a small dose of some different tone to spice it up. For example, add some bright red to make the purple flowers delicious! Similarly, cold greens need brownish tones.

In Finland, Midsummer is a big celebration. The nights are white now in the end of June and you can admire the flowers without going to sleep at all.

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With these pictures, I wish you a wonderful Midsummer and lots of joy in observing and painting tiny treasures – small wildflowers!

Painting small wildflowers – Could this be your next art project?