Protea

[Helenty]

I painted this in 2006 and was a runner up in the Aust artist Magazine with this piece, i was so proud and then sold the painting for a nice sum.I had these Proteas growing in our garden and had to paint one.

[Tony (ASM)]

And you did a great job Helenty! Taking the background out of focus and isolating the flower concentrates the eye. Well done. 

[Helenty]

I actually used spray paint(acrylic) at that time as i was experimenting to see how the backgroung would work.It worked well in this painting but had problems doing others so moved away from that ,though maybe i should try it again.

[Leana]

  WOW Helenty, it looks awesome.  What a fabulous job you did on your Protea. 

[Lillian]

A very pretty flower and I like the background.   

[Anya]

Helenty, this is amazing, I actually thought you posted the photo instead of the painting, so realistic.

What do you mean by spray paint acrylic?

How do you get the background out of focus like that?

Beautiful , you are an incredible artist Helenty.

[sapphirelynn]

Hi Helenty, lovely, please share how you did that background, Urg I struggle with them.  This one is very interesting, I love it.

[nolan]

  it looks like a photo Helen, well done on the runner up, the winning painting must have been something really special to top this painting

[Helenty]

Thank you everyone, the background was done with a spray gun which is small and you change the bottles and it has a small compressor to make it work .The process is quite fiddly but we were in a group and we all decided to try the method, it worked great for some but i prefer to try and do my backgrounds witjh brushes though you could practice witjh small fine spray bottles and fill them with acrylic paint and water and see what happens, it would certainly give a different effect to your work.Sorry i did not explain well enough but it has been quite some time since i used that method.

[sapphirelynn]

Thanks Helenty, I think I will have to experiment