Lavender Lovely

Lavender is Lovely

Lavender is one of my favorite flowers. I have a little bunch in my yard that keeps growing no matter how many weeds try to take it over. This is the prompt for September 6th.

Process

I started with the palette of lavender [purple and greens], plus some golds. When time arrived for the background I added in blues.

For this illustration, I drew the stems and leaves, clipped a layer to add the veins and another layer for shading. I tried to capture the small parts of the lavender flower on each level, adding texture and color variations. Base is the goo brush; texture the juicy paint brush.

I duplicated the lavender twice, adjusting their placement behind the original, flipping them. One of those I distorted. One, I darkened and another lightened with hue, saturation, and brightness tool.

The background are goo brush strokes of blue and gold scattered across the canvas, then blurred. The cotton roll brush I zigzagged across the sky or the earth in the same colors on different layers on multiply blend mode. I kept adding in lighter or darker colors on new layers, just small strokes as highlight or shadow in the sky. I darkened the sky near the horizon. The juicy paint brush created the shadows beneath the lavender.

Those layers ended up being duller than I anticipated, so I copied the entire background and, with hue, saturation, and brightness, I brightened the image and added more saturation.

Each of these are simply curious play with color and brushes, foregoing mistakes and worry about realism, and searching only for the look of lavender on our autumn landscape here in the coulee.

Join the September 2025 art challenge. Take a look on IG at #makingarteveryday #MAE2025. Join the fun at @bardotbrush with @lisabardot to experiment with color; also joining is artist Ana Bianchi @analovescolor and featuring tutorials, giveaways, and new #procreate insights. #explorecolor #bardotbrush #colorcurious #warmup4art