Wedding Flowers (part 1)

You will note that my engravings have recently involved endangered things. This work is about weddings, something which for some folks is a thing of the past. Now I am married and for me being married is not about the legal bit of paper it is an extremely strong expression between 2 people showing how they feel about each other. It is also a great celebration of that expression to family & friends. 

"Wedding Flowers" stage 1.

 The design is fairly simple but I had to work fairly quickly to prevent the moulding paste getting a custard skin (which happens when the stuff starts to set & then can drag large parts around).


I now leave it to set overnight...

Each person may have their own reasons for deciding if they think that getting married is a thing of the past or not but I do think that a lot of people follow the crowd and dismiss things based on what they hear someone else say. A bit like saying you don't like a certain food even though you have never tried it.

"Wedding Flowers" stage 2.

You can see that I started in the top left. No particular reason for this other than I am right handed so it makes sense to minimise getting my cuff in the way.




In my life I feel that getting married was a great thing and a part of life that I would not wish anyone to have to miss out on.

"Wedding Flowers" stage 3.

Most of the foreground is filled in (as I tend to do with my "DNA stain" system). Now what about those two circles in the top right, above the thistle?




We are heading towards Valentine's Day and I normally buy my wife some flowers that we had at our wedding. Now although these are beautiful it is a shame that they do not last for long. I have decided to make my wife a picture for Valentine's Day. Yes, the Qatar Royal Family have the most expensive painting ever sold but they can not afford the price of the most expensive painting never sold. There is, of course no sum this piece can be purchased for. At least while it is in my posession any way.

"Wedding Flowers" stage 4.

Those could be moons / suns etc. but no, they're our wedding rings.

"Wedding Flowers" stage 5.

I normally go directly to the background layer but once it takes beyond a given time the earlier paint is already dry so to get a consistent finish I waited for the whole lot to be dry before the next stage.

"Wedding Flowers" stage 6.

I hope that my wife likes it.

I have completed a couple of things in the above photo. Firstly I applied the background wash and then blotted it, mostly removing it from the engraving. I then had to do more intricate blotting to remove some of the wash that needed it. Finally I have touched up some areas of both background and foreground.

This is not quite finished as I want to check how this looks when everything has had a day or so to dry.