Towards the end of summer, as August rolls around, it’s common for Fireweed in bloom to add a splash of color to the landscape. If you visit the nearby mountain trails, it’s common to see whole mountainsides covered with pink and purple, while fields throughout the area often have patches of these beautiful flowers. Of course, you’ll also find the occasional solitary flower in random ditches here and there.
Since I finished my painting “Lupine Blossoms” I’ve known that Fireweed was next. Both are colorful flowers and to me they complement each other. This led to a quest to find the perfect Fireweed reference photo to use.
This was a little harder than I expected. Over the years I’ve taken plenty of photos of Fireweed, and I managed to snap current ones on a trip up to Hatcher Pass in early September. In the end, my wife Elisabeth found the perfect photos to base this painting on while I used some of my own as additional references. All together, this painting is based on about half a dozen different photos of Fireweed.
The painting process on this painting was a little bit different than for my Lupine painting. This time around, I painted the background around the flowers first. With the Lupine painting, I ended up doing that towards the end, which caused some unexpected complications. It also helps outlining the flowers themselves.
Once the background around the flowers was done, I went to work on the background itself. You may recall that the Lupine painting had a fairly vibrant green that I felt matched the blue quite well. For the Fireweed painting, I wanted something a little less vibrant, something a little darker while still retaining a similar look to the Lupine background.
Then, I painted the flowers themselves from top to bottom, focusing primarily on the pink and purple initially, then adding the green and red for the stems.
The leaves at the bottom I left for last. I feel like they added a nice splash of a little brighter green to the image.
Finally, the white stamens were added as a final touch, adding another level of detail. Painting complete!
For this painting, I used “Opera Pink” by Daniel Smith paints. I’m glad I did. The pink is such a vibrant color that really makes the flowers on the original painting really stand out, to the point where I’ve had difficulty reproducing the vibrancy on prints.
Regardless, after a few hours of tweaking, I have now both prints and greeting cards of this beautiful painting available. Check out the store on this site for more information!
Finally, what do you think about this painting? Does it capture the essence of Fireweed?
