Welcome to my post about creating vibrant lilies with pastels. I am going to be taking a loose and spontaneous approach rather than a detailed, highly realistic portrayal of these beautiful plants. Lilies are pretty easy to grow – as long as you can keep lily beetles at bay ! I love the scented ones but the bright and colourful ones are the most fun to paint. These lilies have been faithfully blooming in my garden for about a decade so I thought it was high time I brought them to an art journal page. I worked from photos rather than cutting the stems and am including some below for you to use in your own art journal page (I retain copyright but grant you a license to use them).
I have been enjoying pastels so much recently that I have used them again in this page but also because it faces my pastel rose page and I wanted the spread to be coherent. In this page I focus on colour rather than form – bearing in mind it is an art journal page rather than a ‘masterpiece’ (chuckle).
Materials Needed
- Soft pastels
- Neocolour pastels
- Wax pastel crayons
- Acrylic spray
- Stencil
- Clear gesso
- Heavy weight paper
- Fixative
- Blending stumps
Brief Overview of Process for Creating Vibrant Lilies with Pastels
Once you have chosen or taken a good reference photo that has a sharp focus on the flowers and the colours are clear and bright with no glare or objects obscuring your subject you need to select a good, sturdy support with sufficient tooth for your intended level of detail. For this piece I use a clear gesso background as I only need one and a bit layers. My intention was to be fairly expressive.
Get your outlines down so you have a guide then choose colours in an intuitive way by glancing frequently at the subject and choosing quickly. It is true that you may make ‘wrong’ colour choices but this is then a learning experience. The important things to know are the warmth and coolness of colours this way you can show form in the petals even without darkening the hue and your lilies will remain vibrant. In a similar way to my rose pastel painting I tweak the background with acrylic paints to contrast with the lilies and make them pop further. It’s certainly not a masterpiece but rather a useful sketchy exercise and fun with lilies.
Choosing Colours for Creating Vibrant Lilies with Pastels
I chose to paint the brightest lilies I’ve ever seen ! Beyond this, to end up with a vibrant piece your top priority should be to avoid mixing complimentary colours. Of course you could take this with a pinch of salt and dull off your reds to create form instead of cooling them off by moving towards a cooler colour. For example a bright cadmium orange is ‘hot’ and will ‘advance’ or seem to come forward on the page while a quinacridone rose will ‘recede’ or seem to be further away on the page. The effect will be subtle. Avoid blending out your pastels too much too as this can reduce their natural vibrancy.
How Creating Vibrant Lilies with Pastels can Improve Your Mental Health
For me painting with strong bold colours literally seems to chase away the doldrums. I feel like there should be more known about this but it must be difficult to quantify. Lilies have a very strong form which is easy to draw and that in itself can help avoid some frustrations of drawing which helps the process to be more enjoyable. But failing that you can always transfer the outlines of a piece to your support. I think the naturally bold form of lilies is easy to contemplate while painting and brings forward feeling of confidence. Above all you should choose a subject you enjoy and the fact that you were (most likely) searching for lilies when you found this post makes them a likely subject for your enjoyment. This will lead to improvements in your mental health. [I in no way mean ‘fix’ your mental health]. So go on … create some vibrant lilies with pastels !
