Page 73 - The Decorative Painter Winter 2017

White for the reflected light. Try to do varying sizes and number/ clusters of droplets. Not every petal or leaf needs dewdrops. I once got carried away and did water everywhere. Although it was as it is in reality ... it was too much for the eye to accept.
Check your dewdrops, and add more shadow or reflected light on any as needed. Now lightly dip the tip of your liner brush into the Warm White and drop a tiny dot in upper/right of each dewdrop. On drips, the shadows are slightly elongated on the left side, so I add a tiny, fine dash and a dot below on the upper/right. I love how it comes alive!
For both color and placement in a design, I’m very aware of triangles. Note that the two buds balance the red flower. To further enhance this, I stroked just a HINT of True Red on the rolled dark petal and the one tucking behind the red poppy. I also put the little red reflection on the bottom left beneath the red poppy. It should be very sheer and subtle. Put reflected color ONLY on those darker petals that are against the red flower.
The background areas between elements at the bottom near the point are now a lighter, clean background color ... and want to come forward. To tuck them back, I concentrated just a hint of the floated color with Midnite Green+Charcoal Grey (2:1) on a 1⁄2" brush to tuck color in inverted “V’s” in this small area. The load should be minimal enough that you aren’t immediately aware it has been done. Notice that to a lesser degree, I added color in several light-deprived V areas around where it tucked into the design.
Hope you’ll enjoy your frame the whole year-round!
artist’s sketch
Jean Zawicki began rosemaling in the mid-1960s
and took up teaching within two years. In the late
1960s and ’70s decorative painting caught on like
wildfire, and there was great demand for classes. She
joined SDP in 1976. From 1978 to 2008 Jean travel-
taught, and to date she has written 29 books and
dozens of packets. Jean held booths at SDP Confer-
ences from 1978 through 2000. She finds it refreshing to have students who are interested in a large variety of subjects, especially her favorites: fruit and flowers. Currently, retirement allows Jean to indulge in her pas- sion to create fired, hand-painted china. You can write to Jean Zawicki at 430 Louisiana Ave., St. Cloud, FL 34769; call her at (407) 892-6383; or email her at jzawicki@cfl.rr.com.
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