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There is just something about peonies! I love peony perfume (Jo Malone, oo la la!) and I love peony air fresheners, too. It’s no secret my favorite flower model is the peony. These intricate flowers have so many variations, colors and shapes, I never grow tired of what will happen when my brush intersects with their frilly skirts and feather head-dresses on canvas. A peony is an explosion of pink joy, a cloud of sweet scents and every variation of beautiful pink and dulcet peach tones in one.

Here is a step by step exercise of a small peony painting I completed last week. I use a large 3/4 inch flat brush to create my forals. A large brush helps prevent precious detail that can suffocate the spontaneity and life-filled movement of a botanical subject. Starting with a very abstract underpainting in all transparent color is the key, and gives the added benefit of beautiful “mix into” colors to build subtle layering.

If you’re curious about my brushes and colors, you can find all my favorite supplies here. Enjoy!

Did you enjoy this colorful step by step exercise? You can paint peonies with me in my upcoming online class, Painting Monet’s Garden!

 

 

 

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Painting Monet’s Garden Registration Closes June 19!

Here’s a peek at the gardens!

Pack your sun hat, your colorful brushes, and your love for flowers and gardens – your invitation to a summer with Monet is here! Painting Monet’s Garden, my new online workshop, opens in 10 days. With eight full-length lessons to download and keep, prepare to embrace the place Monet loved best in the world!

 

Get more joy with monthly online classes

Click here for the scoop!

Join me in Flower Mound Studio – Here’s the scoop!

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One of my favorite colors to add excitement and texture to my oil florals is an underpainting of textured Quinacridone Magenta in acrylics. Just a little prep work with acrylics can give you an exciting backdrop of color, and ridges of chunky depth that play a part in creating a vibrant, multifaceted garden even with simple blossoms such as coneflowers. I’ve shared a step by step with you here. The part you won’t have to see is cleanup duty! My studio is looking a bit like a factory showroom, after all the parts have been disassembled and then reassembled, and spattered with paint.

I hope you’ve been enjoying this recent series of color journeys here on the Blossom Blog. If you have, please share the news with your flower friends, what a beautiful gift that would be to me!

PS:  You can find all my favorite colors and supplies here.

 

 

 

 

 

Now it’s time to lay in oil colors. Use a cross-hatch stroke with a large brush combining three values of warm green. Be sure to leave openings so that gorgeous magenta can shine through. Looks a bit like a pastel painting, don’t you think?

After you’ve finished your flowers in oils, mix your medium in with some gold oil paint. Any brand will work, I’m using Fine Gold by Rembrandt here. With an old toothbrush, sprinkle gold dust liberally upon your blossoms! It’s almost like pollen is drifting through the garden ~ how cool is that?

Did you enjoy this color tip? You can find many more in my upcoming online class, Painting Monet’s Garden!

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Painting Monet’s Garden Registration Is Open!

Here’s your first look

Pack your sun hat, your colorful brushes, and your love for flowers and gardens – your invitation to a summer with Monet is here! Painting Monet’s Garden, my new online workshop, opens in 10 days. With eight full-length lessons to download and keep, prepare to embrace the place Monet loved best in the world!

 

Get more joy with monthly online classes

Click here for the scoop!

Join me in Flower Mound Studio – Here’s the scoop!

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I love this day, it’s the day I get to sit with my ice mocha in hand, take a breath, and write a letter to my soul sisters and artist friends, sharing all my crazy notions, ideas, and exciting news here in the Blossom Blog. Your sympathetic ear, kind words, and uplifting comments have carried me through dips and valleys and peaks and high points in this Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride/Art Journey Life. The more you paint, the more you know that you don’t know, as many of you, um, know….! But there’s another side to the drive to paint continually, to infuse it into your every day, and to think of painting every night. Most artists are driven by curiosity. An obsession to try new techniques, new subjects, and new materials is something many of us share. I’ve been pulling out the acrylics more and more lately, and finding a new reason every day to fall in love with them all over again.

One of my favorite new underpainting colors for both oil and acrylic paintings is Titan Mars Pale, an acrylic color by Golden. You may have heard me mention Titan Green Pale by Golden, extolling the virtues of a spring garden on canvas laying on a bed of that divine green acrylic. But its peachy partner has caught my attention for achieving a perfect glow, especially when creating backlit figures in the garden. Pink Ribbon Girl was created in oils on an underpainting of Titan Mars Pale acrylic color. I’ve also found that pulling an edge on a white flower created on a bed of Titan Mars Pale gives you the perfect highlight, not too orange, not too cool, but just right.

I tint panels and cotton stretched canvas using acrylic colors frequently, (though I don’t recommend painting acrylics over oil primed linen). Let those acrylics dry thoroughly before you apply oils on top. And be sure to wash the acrylic brushes immediately with warm water and soap, since acrylic dries quickly and will ruin your brushes if you don’t take care of those right away. If you’re working on an oil primed surface, you can mix an oil color similar to Titan Mars Pale. The recipe in oils for Titan Mars Pale is a mixture of Indian Yellow, Permanent Rose and Titanium White. A smidgen of Ice Blue by Richeson (the Shiva Series in oils) will calm the mix, if you want a cooler glow.  You can find all my favorite colors and supplies here.

 

 

Did you enjoy this color tip? You can find many more in my upcoming online class, Painting Monet’s Garden!

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Painting Monet’s Garden Registration Is Open!

Here’s your first look

Pack your sun hat, your colorful brushes, and your love for flowers and gardens – your invitation to a summer with Monet is here! Painting Monet’s Garden, my new online workshop, opens in 10 days. With eight full-length lessons to download and keep, prepare to embrace the place Monet loved best in the world!

 

Get more joy with monthly online classes

Click here for the scoop!

Join me in Flower Mound Studio – Here’s the scoop!

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If you’re going to dip your brush into pinks, you must dip them all the way! At least, that’s what my muse has been whispering lately, each time I pick up the brushes for a new painting in Flower Mound Studio. One of my favorite pinks in the whole world is a transparent color called Quinacridone Violet. I’ve color tested a few brands and found most to be pretty similar in quality, so long as you’re ordering professional quality paints.

Quinacridone Violet is not the only pink I love, however. Don’t tell Quin, but I’ve got a huge crush on Permanent Rose, too. I hope these hues aren’t the jealous type, because I just can’t seem to choose between them. Here are a few pointers for getting the most vivid pinks in your floral paintings:

First, always start with clean, transparent colors such as Permanent Rose and/or Quinacridone Violet. Laying in transparent color first, before touching any opaque color such as white, a cadmium, or another color mixed with white, ensures you will have an eye-catching pink glow. Paint large, abstract shapes in this first transparent stage. After you’ve got this foundation of color placed, then add a smidgen of white to mix a couple of temperatures of pinks. A few of my favorite recipes are: Permanent Rose, Indian Yellow and white, for a yummy, peachy pink; Quinacridone Violet and white – a cooler, rich pink; and Permanent Rose, Transparent Red Medium and white, for a warmer pink.

Once you’ve got your opaque colors mixed in separate piles, you have the tools to create beautiful temperature shifts within your pink flowers. These opaque colors are your tools for forming petal shapes and detail. There’s an important reason to build the foundation first in loose, impressionistic shapes using transparent color, and wait until the end to create detail in opaques: We don’t hang the kitchen curtains before we build the house.

There’s one more secret to getting a vivid pink: Place a cool green next to it, such as leaves and stem colors mixed with viridian. These are just a few strategies for your pink flower painting toolkit. Imagine all the pink flowers out there, just waiting to leap off your brush onto your next canvas. One should never underestimate the petal power of pink!

Did you enjoy this color tip? You can find many more in my upcoming online class, Painting Monet’s Garden!

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Painting Monet’s Garden Registration Is Open!

Here’s your first look

Pack your sun hat, your colorful brushes, and your love for flowers and gardens – your invitation to a summer with Monet is here! Painting Monet’s Garden, my new online workshop, opens in 10 days. With eight full-length lessons to download and keep, prepare to embrace the place Monet loved best in the world!

 

Get more joy with monthly online classes

Click here for the scoop!

Join me in Flower Mound Studio – Here’s the scoop!

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If you could choose one point in time in the distant past to visit, what time would you select? One of my favorite works of fiction is the Doomsday series by Connie Willis. It’s a story of scientists who are able to pinpoint periods in the past where they can visit and observe, with strict orders not to alter the historical events they witness. As you can imagine, things never go as planned, in life or in fiction.

If I could go back in time, I would like to be there when Monet created the first in his Les Nympheas (water lily) paintings. He destroyed some of these works in frustration, certain no one would understand or appreciate them. I imagine there was quite a pile of canvas and wood, considering the size of the paintings. Were these among the lost masterworks of all time, like the portrait of Winston Churchill by Graham Sutherland, destined to be obliterated because Churchill hated it?

Could you have sat there, quietly, not interfering while Monet’s damaged paintings were left in a rubbish pile for disposal? I am already picturing myself trying to fish out a portion of one of those canvases to sneak back to the present. Dressed in period specific clothing, skulking about in the bushes like an extra garden hand, and dashing away with a torn roll of stretched linen tucked under my arm could be hazardous. Alternatively, I could have simply explained to Monet that, in today’s world, just one of those paintings sold recently for $41 million. He may not have believed me, so I would have to bring proof. Already I can see dozens of ways this fantastical sojourn could go sideways, not the least of which would be losing my awesome time traveler job for violating the terms of my employment.

Monet’s artist friends did try to discourage him from destroying his paintings, and tried to lift him up during his later life, when he went through periods of depression. He was stubborn, otherwise he would never have persisted in his lifelong struggle to be an artist, despite times of hunger and homelessness. He was known to put his foot through canvases or slash paintings already scheduled for exhibitions in Paris. Something tells me no matter what brilliant scheme were devised, we could not stop him from destroying the first of the water garden paintings.

The night before the grand exhibition of Les Nympheas, he agonized and almost called off the whole event. He still doubted anyone would understand or appreciate the work. Doubting yourself and your work is definitely something many artists do. Maybe it’s a small comfort, even a tiny one, to know the masters experienced this same self-doubt. A noted contemporary artist posted recently that you should never show your work until you feel accomplished in your journey. If Monet had taken her advice, where would we be today? Who is to judge what is good and what is bad art? In the words of my gifted friend and contemporary impressionist Pierre van Dijk, no one can judge this. As artists, we can only keep working and keep painting, because that is what we were born to do.

Have you ever doubted your own work? Did you find a way to over come that? I would love to hear your story!

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Painting Monet’s Garden Registration Is Open!

Here’s your first look

Pack your sun hat, your colorful brushes, and your love for flowers and gardens – your invitation to a summer with Monet is here! Painting Monet’s Garden, my new online workshop, opens in 10 days. With eight full-length lessons to download and keep, prepare to embrace the place Monet loved best in the world!

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Get more joy with monthly online classes

Click here for the scoop!

Join me in Flower Mound Studio – Here’s the scoop!

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A memory from my childhood came to me today, as I was thinking of my Mom and all the gifts she gave me, the way she grounded my world and was the center of who I was, and who I have become. I am one of those fortunate people who happened to have an extraordinary, strong, intelligent Mother whose capacity to love gently and without judgment was balanced by her unfaltering ability to brook no nonsense from her girls. While life and the world and growing up and adolescence and my raging shyness swirled about me like a tornado, the moment I thought of my Mother, the noise stopped, the frenetic winds of change quieted, and breathing became easier. Even after I grew up, and moved far away from our East Texas farmstead, she was always a comforting phone call away.

We were not wealthy when I was young, by any means. My parents both worked full time, and ran a working farm in the evenings and on weekends. It was always a stretch to have money above and beyond necessities, and Mom saved a few dollars back from the grocery money every week to buy small gifts for us girls and as a fund for school clothes.

One day, my Mother called me into her bedroom and gave me a package. Inside was a box of 72 Crayons, arranged in tiers with perfect points of every color. I’ll never forget the smell of the wax when I opened the box, and the joy that flooded me from head to toe. I had wanted those Crayons for so long, I could not remember the first time I began longing for them. This memory stands out because it was the moment I realized, with no doubt, that my Mother believed in me. She believe in my dreams and she believed in my talent. This was the gift, one so deep and rich, it has never stopped giving, no matter how many times I unwrap its memory and hold it up to the light.

It never occurred to me until a few moments ago, she probably had a gift for every one of my sisters, something she knew appealed to their hearts, too. But I kept that precious box of 72 Crayons a secret, since she asked me to. Each time I think of those Crayons, I’m bathed again in the warmth and weight of her love. This week is the 2-year anniversary of her passing. I still feel her with me. I may not be able to pick up the phone and call her any more, or sit at her kitchen table and watch her work her crossword puzzles and drink her iced tea, but the echo of her voice and her laughter never leave me. If I had to choose a life again from the beginning, I would choose exactly this one, because it would mean she would be my Mom.

Did your Mother share a gift with you that you’ll never forget? I would love to hear your story!

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Only 10 Days to Painting Monet!

 

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Blooming online this summer!

 

Pack your sun hat, your colorful brushes, and your love for flowers and gardens – your invitation to a summer with Monet is here! Painting Monet’s Garden, my new online workshop, opens in 10 days. With eight full-length lessons to download and keep, prepare to embrace the place Monet loved best in the world!

Here’s your first look

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Get more joy with monthly online classes

Click here for the scoop!

Join me in Flower Mound Studio – Here’s the scoop!

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I have so many friends working in corporate America, and wishing they could cut the cord and begin a full-time art career. I’ve shared some insights into my own journey often in the past. Looking back today, I’ve learned something new not only about myself, but about how the pieces of our lives have to fit together in their own time and space to create a pattern where the joy outweighs the fear.

After six years of emancipation from corporate, I have found a work pattern that is predictable and comforting. I paint four to six hours a session, about four to five times per week. By giving myself a day or two off each week from the easel, I give my mind time to process what I’ve learned, and where I’ve failed or not achieved the desired results of the previous days’ paintings. There is a rhythm to this daily-ish painting that is a whole other story to be shared in a future blog post. It’s like a dance with intuition, where you give up control and let something larger than yourself take control, no matter how terrifying it may be. It’s a waltz when it works. It’s a wrestling match when it doesn’t. I have the bruises to prove it.

Ironically, I still paint at night, and work all day. The workday now consists of a mesh of conference calls with my team members, video shoots in studio and on location, writing, marketing, workshops, live videos, critiques, photo shoots, and more. There is rarely a weekend or holiday I’m not working, but it’s a labor of love in every sense of the word.

If you have not yet noticed, I’ve used the word “fear” earlier in this post. The mantra “2 more years” is what so many professionals say, when they know they’re on the brink of leaving the corporate race for the next chapter in their journeys. I sat on that “2 more years” ledge for 8 years. I know all the little things we tell ourselves to avoid stepping off that ledge into the future, into the unknown. I’m not saying you have to well and truly hate your corporate job to find the will to leave it, but I am saying you must want the art journey with all your heart, for the separation from a biweekly paycheck with associated health coverage to be palatable.

The litany that glued me to the ledge included the mortgage, health insurance, credit card payments, car payments, etc. I planned in advance, with my husband fully on board with my goals. Two years ago, he quit corporate to begin working with me full-time, freeing me up to achieve/dream/visualize more fully what my art journey could be. For me, it all boiled down to discovering the one thing I love best: teaching. For others, it may be another “one big thing.” Discovering that pivotal piece is sometimes all it takes to give you the impetus you need.

Was leaving corporate America and launching a full-time art and teaching career worth it? Absolutely. It’s been the biggest dream of my life, come to fruition, fueled by painting and teaching students from around the world. I love my students. The energy they give me is what carries me through the tough times, and the times of self-doubt, and even the lean times. They are the “joy” in Joyful Brush!

I had this funny idea that when I quit corporate America to launch my art business full-time, I’d have scads of time to paint all day long! Instead, my art business has exploded since then. Which means I work all the time, with rare exceptions. Fortunately, this is my dream job. They say the happiest people are those who own their own businesses. I think that goes double for artists.

Are you on the brink of the next beautiful chapter in your creative journey? I would love to hear your story!

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A Hill Country Workshop

Only two seats left for Fredericksburg in May

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A visit to Fredericksburg isn’t complete unless you explore Willow City Loop, a winding lane through ranches and clifftops where the wild poppies and bluebonnets grow amidst cactus and Indian paintbrush. You’re invited to join me for a trip to Wildflower Central but don’t delay, there are only 2 seats left for Fredericksburg, Texas! Learn more…

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Painting Monet’s Garden

Blooming online this summer!

 

We finished filming for my new online class, Painting Monet’s Garden, this week. Are you ready for your new journey workshop? Pack your sun hat, your muse, and your dreams of Monet, Painting Monet’s Garden is coming!

Here’s your first look

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Get more joy with monthly online classes

Click here for the scoop!

Join me in Flower Mound Studio – Here’s the scoop!

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We traveled to the Texas Hill Country for a workshop this week, during the best wildflower bloom in five years. With flower peepin’, boot scootin’, and wine sippin’ on the menu, we stayed in the historic town of Fredericksburg – so much goodness, and cherry kolaches, too! I’ve shared some glimpses of the workshop and flower tours with you here. These artists tackled tulip fields, hydrangeas, lilacs and some figurative work, including painting a flower girl in a cute hat on canvas. Even with this long color checklist, we found time for a field trip to Wildseed Farms and a tasting at 4.0 Winery. There’s no rest for flower painters when the wildflowers arrive!

We’re heading to Fredericksburg in May!

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A visit to Fredericksburg isn’t complete unless you explore Willow City Loop, a winding lane through ranches and clifftops where the wild poppies and bluebonnets grow amidst cactus and Indian paintbrush. It’s been years since Indian paintbrush has made a comeback (not to be confused with Indian blanket), since Central Texas has been battling a drought for such a long time. The rains over the past year have revived my favorite red flower, which used to cover the fields of the organic farm where I grew up in East Texas.

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I’m excited to be returning in just a few weeks, because one week in Freddy-burg just isn’t enough for the flower chasers of the world! Soon we’ll fill the car with easels and brushes and all the accoutrements of the painter’s life, and head off for another blooming adventure to the birthplace of the wildflower seeding program created by the late Ladybird Johnson, aka “Wildflower Central”. Stay tuned flower friends: I’ll share new images with you from Wildflower Central soon!

Now that I’ve wet your whistle for bloomers, here’s a peek at those wildflowers in all their splendiferous glory! Enjoy!

Texas Hill Country Super Bloom

All images copyright 2019 Nancy Medina Art LLC

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PS: Here’s your first look at Painting Monet’s Garden!

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Coming this summer – Learn more…!

 

We finished filming for my new online class, Painting Monet’s Garden, this week. Are you ready for your new journey workshop? Pack your sun hat, your muse, and your dreams of Monet, Painting Monet’s Garden is coming!

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Get more joy with monthly online classes

Click here for the scoop!

Join me in Flower Mound Studio – Here’s the scoop!

Do you ever have trouble finding inspiration or ideas about what to paint next? In the past, resources like Pinterest really fired up my muse and gave me ideas not only about subjects, but cool techniques, painting surfaces and tools, and important new art supplies I did not yet own which needed to be acquired post-haste because one can never have too many of those! These days, I’ve found that scheduling intentional appointments for flower field trips fills my painting repertoire with great images for years to come. Being one of those lucky business owners whose spouse works with me full time, I have access to my own personal chef/chauffeur/business manager and best friend, all rolled into one. Carlos makes sure I don’t skip those key dates – The Dallas Blooms Festival at the Arboretum; Tulipalooza at Poston Gardens in Waxahachie, Texas; and our annual spring pilgrimage to Fredericksburg, Texas, for wildflower bloom. I’m pleased to report wildflower bloom cooperated fully this year, thanks to a wet spring in the Hill Country, and I’ll be sharing images of the famous Texas bluebonnets with you soon!

It’s super important to pace yourself and train in advance for these career goals. True, I’ve been accused of shopping fanatically early for geraniums at the local nursery. Even the gal behind the register cast a few doubtful looks my way when I insisted the gazillion blossoms I was squeezing into the car surely would not freeze just because it was early March. (I got lucky – no  freeze, and they’re still blooming!) If it’s beginning to sound like I won the flower lottery, you’re quite right. In fact, it’s a dream come true to have a job as an artist, painter, teacher and full-time encourager for the flower friends who have joined me on this journey. When I left corporate, I traded panty hose for pots of pansies and Jimmy Chus for tennis shoes, and never looked back!

Tonight we fill the car with easels and brushes and all the accoutrements of a floral workshop, and head off for another blooming adventure to the birthplace of the wildflower seeding program created by the late Ladybird Johnson, aka “Wildflower Central”. I visit these same gardens and rolling hills covered in Indian paintbrush, poppies and bluebonnets, every year, but always find something new and exciting to reignite my color joy. I’ll share new images with you from Wildflower Central soon, so stay tuned!

Now that I’ve wet your whistle for bloomers, here’s a stroll through the Dallas Arboretum Blooms fest last week, starring the springtime garden queens – tulips – in all their splendiferous glory! Enjoy!

The Dallas Arboretum Blooms Festival

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PS: Here’s your first peek at my new online class, Painting Monet’s Garden!

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Painting Monet’s Garden ~ An Online Journey

 

This week, we shared the first peek at my new online class, Painting Monet’s Garden. I’ve never been more excited to share an online destination with you – with flowers, water gardens, green shutters and trellises loaded with bloomers, what more could our hearts desire? You are invited to spend the summer with me in Monet’s garden. Pack your sun hat, your muse, and your dreams of Monet, Painting Monet’s Garden is coming!

 

Blooming this summer!  Learn more…

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Get more joy with monthly online classes

Click here for the scoop!

Join me in Flower Mound Studio – Here’s the scoop!

If you could choose your dreams, would they be filled with flowers? We’re celebrating that spring feeling here in the studio, my garden is already full of blossoms, but I am hoping for more soon! Peach geraniums, late daffodils, early irises, and violet pansies left over from cooler months are getting reacquainted in pots of fresh soil. I’ve always dreamed about painting, and sometimes find my mind falling into sleepy loops, working on a red poppy again and again while drifting off, puzzling out textures and colors that disappear moments after they’re placed on the canvas. As a child, I rode my bicycle through dreams of a curved earth where the ground was pure, white paper, stretching to the horizon, waiting to be filled with my drawings. I spent years drawing girls in dresses and ballgowns, thinking I was most certainly going to be a fashion designer someday. Fashion wasn’t in my future (unless paint splattered jeans become the rage!), but design and color are still a part of my work as a daily painter.

I don’t know what filled Monet’s dreams, but I suspect they were colored by his paintings and gardens. Monet painted from life, inspired by color and light carefully orchestrated in his gardens. In Giverny, he met with his gardener every day, making sure the water garden surfaces were cleaned, the lilies fed, and an ever changing palette of flowers was mapped out for the coming months. His passion included his gardens. A few years ago my students and I were painting in San Diego and encountered master gardener Juan Flores and his team planting foxgloves and pansies at a cottage on Coronado Island. Juan was kind enough to stop his work and answer our questions about how he created his award winning gardens. Juan said he dreamed every night of his gardens, what he would plant, where he would place colors together, and what unexpected things he could add. Everyone wants roses and delphiniums, he said. I tell them, you must include something exotic, something unexpected. This is what makes the gardens special. Even as his team waited with cut flowers that were due for delivery to the annual flower show, he couldn’t seem to stop talking about the flower gardens he had created, and the ones to come. There is a sense of discovery when you live your life as a creative, and if you’re lucky enough to be someone in love with flowers, spring is the most Heavenly time to dream!

Early bloomers in my garden

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If you could spend an afternoon in Monet’s garden, would you explore the water gardens first, or the pink brick house? Even if you can’t travel there in person, you can join me there this summer. Pack your sun hat, and your dreams of Monet, Painting Monet’s Garden is coming!

 

Here’s a sneak peek at my new online class coming this summer, Painting Monet’s Garden!

 

 

 

Painting Monet’s Garden ~ An Online Journey

The countdown to Monet has begun! Have you dreamed of painting in gardens filled with the light and colors beloved by the impressionist masters? My newest online journey, Painting Monet’s Garden is coming!

Here’s your sneak peek….

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Blooming this summer!  Learn more…

 

Get more joy with monthly online classes

Click here for the scoop!

Join me in Flower Mound Studio – Here’s the scoop!