Star Crossed Strelitzias: Silly Saturday

Posted bydebirileyPosted inart, inspiration, painting, photographyTags:, , , , , ,
star crossed flowers on a silly saturday, debiriley

Strelitzias,   otherwise known as the Bird of Paradise flower, stunning orange with a flash of rich French ultramarine blue.  Plopped in a vase they ended up staring at opposite sides of the room. Silly Saturday Strelitzias!

star crossed flowers on a silly saturday, debiriley
Star Crossed

What can you see or interpret, with these flowers?

Have a bit of fun imagining and reading things into the placement of these back to back flowers.

Perhaps, they might be rather miffed and cross with each other….  or maybe, they’re star crossed, ships passing in the night. Be inventive, turn your imagination loose on silly Saturday!   

In a previous post I’d mentioned symbolism, this could be a perfect example of using the elements in a symbolic fashion.

 

 

Design

Composing and Telling a Story

Perhaps you might want to try these things sometimes, when you set up your still life to draw, or paint or take your photos.

This is the FUN part of drawing, painting, photographing!!

You, are the Director!

 

You get to move objects and shapes, change colors, wave a magic wand and make things vanish or appear at your discretion.

As the Director, the creator you use lines, directions, movement, color, tonal value key, object placement   to stir things up and invent a unique composition or message.  This is such fun, as you may have noted in Friday’s Quail Eggs, Freckles and Speckles!

The use of Line can be especially powerful combined with a targeted specified directional movement.   Creative Line Use  could be a useful post to review, as might The Thin Red Line for fun reading.

 

Color Opposites

Blue and Orange are Opposites,  complementary pairs.   The image below,  Shoreline,  a pastel painting was created using mainly the blue and orange pairing.

shoreline pastel landscape painting, debiriley.com
Shoreline in Blue/Orange

In Doorway,  Glorious Autumn Leaves, and  Landscapes,  you can see how this blue/orange combination helps to create visual interest.

 

 

Design Basics Guidelines Checklist

From a standard Design basics guideline, the Strelitzia flower photo is not ideal.

What’s amiss? And, in this case,  have the flaws been adequately camouflaged?

 

The vase is centered, flowers are smack in the middle, sharp pointy petals are all directing the eye out of the image, no clear focal point.

 

How,  have some of those issues been made to appear ‘less’ noticeable, or not as critical?

 

  1. That little bunch of rhodies bring the eye back into the picture, counterbalancing all those sharp edges that are pointing out of the picture.
  2. On both the left and the right sides, there is a subtle tonal darkening which serves to shift the eye back in as well.
  3. One strelitzia is just slightly,  more in focus than the other on the right hand side.
  4. The triangular shape on the bottom right corner seems to help bring the eye back in.
  5. There are some lovely negative spaces created by the strelitzia petals interlocking that capture the eye as well.

 

 

Original and Quirky,  Evocative

My eyes gravitate more to an image that is funny, quirky, or telling a story even if there are errors  – than the ‘perfectly’ executed artwork that is lacking that spark of personality.

 

I always remember the quirky one!

Silly Saturday, quirky, photographs, debiriley.com
Pegs Looking Left and Right

Gotta go.

As you can see,  There’s laundry to do………..

 

 

one last thing, 2  Milestones reached today!     Today’s views broke my old record.

and my website blog now has over 50,000 views since starting. Thanking you, for that!

Published by debiriley

The act of creation, in any media is a fascinating and magical process. I simply love to create. Expressing in color, line, tone, texture - as if, they were words upon a page. Creating a uniquely me, interpretation. Enjoy More of my "one-of-a-kind" expressive art at society6.com/debiriley and, redbubble.com/people/debijriley/shop

41 thoughts on “Star Crossed Strelitzias: Silly Saturday”

  5. Lots of views, wow – wonderful! Your thoughtful comments on my blog are always a joy. I love how all of these images feature similar colors in different ways/lines/shapes. So glad I found you and your blog! Thanks for being on WordPress and expanding our perceptions…

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Thank you Cynthia! Its always a bit hit/miss with posts for me, but it is Fun. Glad that you are enjoying having a look and a read thru! cheers, Debi 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

  6. I love the birds of paradise, year ago I had them my garden. Beautiful! Thank you for your post today and learning about your 50,000 views, you deserve such a milestone.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. Every time I read your blog I remember the good old days in the art school, how I wish that I could go back and do it again and again! Love your informative and fun approach, it is most enjoyable, very inspiring and we all can learn from it! Thank you for being so generous and sharing with us!
    Have a most wonderful weekend Debi! 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

  10. Congratulations on the views. I can definitely understand why. I find myself visiting more than once a day. A few years back a friend from Australia presented me with a bag of those colorful plastic pegs!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. thank you Carmel! coming from the US the whole ‘pegs and hanging laundry’ was a novel concept…. but, it makes sense! esp in 90+ heat, silly to turn a dryer on.

      Liked by 1 person

  11. these flowers would be a nice present to somebody who has divorced. Just like these flowers which look to different sides as if they didn’t have any connection to each other, couples can drift apart and don’t have anything in common anymore. Even though I love these flowers, they really make me sad somehow. Your painting is very beautiful and I hope you had a nice day even with washing clothes – like I did today. Cheers Mitza

    Liked by 1 person

    1. oh my gosh, you have just made me burst out laughing!! my stomach hurts… too funny.
      yes, the flower arrangement wasn’t a really bright happy lovey dovey one; but it happened by chance. And I thought I’d use it. It does, I think, make more people aware of taking more direct control, of creating their own still life set ups. STILL laughing!

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Well, I’m happy that I made you laugh, even though it wasn’t really meant in a funny way, because I was a bit sad due to some private problems. But maybe it’s better to laugh them away. Today it was so stormy that I nearly flew away. So what would you do without me???

        Liked by 1 person

      2. sorry that you’re feeling sad Mitza, and I didn’t mean to make light of that… you probably know that though. wishing you a better day today 🙂 cheers, Debi

        Liked by 1 person

      4. I hear you! I just a thought reading your other comment on old English roses. Does it make a difference, when you deeply inhale a lovely flower scent? jasmine, rose, gardenia, lily, ….etc. even cinnamon? Lily or Jasmine Picks me up!

        Liked by 1 person

      5. Yes, I love all of these scents you described, too. In Greece in the evenings some plants are exhaling such beguiling scents, that I would like to become a butterfly immediately and tumble from flower to flower as if I took a drug…

        Liked by 1 person

    1. thank you Andrew, I appreciate that! apparently I ‘inspired’ the 2yr whilst visiting with my Fabriano paper and Sennelier oil pastel ‘Gramma brought to share’ – and, yes, I will post his art work later. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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