“Hydrangea”, 9×12″ pastel on paper by Annie Dash Studios
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:4-7
The hydrangea is a beautiful flower, symbolic of heartfelt emotions, love and sincerity, gratitude, enduring grace and beauty, and apologies. As a highly sensitive artist, I am deeply inspired by the beauty and symbolism I see in the world.
As I mentioned in my previous post about my Hydrangea watercolor piece, my in-laws are wonderful gardeners, and I was moved by their incredibly beautiful hydrangeas while visiting them in 2023. This was one of the photos that I took:
“Hydrangea” photograph by Annie Dash
Inspired to continue my floral portrait series that began with “Magnolia”, and “Rose” in watercolor and moved to pastel painting with “Iris“, I decided to recreate the Hydrangea watercolor as a pastel painting.
For this piece, I used PanPastels to produce a painterly look for the underpainting of the flower blossoms and leafy background, then added Faber Castell Pitt pastel pencils for all the detail work. You can view the highlights of my work process in the photo collage below.
While the subject was fairly complex and a bit challenging, I absolutely loved working in the pastel medium to create this piece!
In case you missed it — I always work from extremely high quality reference photos with professional prints, and recommend this for other artists as well. In fact, I was inspired to study photography in college and beyond from my desire to get high quality reference photos (you can learn more about that in the About page).
I’d love to hear from you: do you prefer the Hydrangea painting in watercolor, or this new pastel painting piece? Please leave a comment below.
I’m wishing you and your loved ones a day filled with love, peace, heartfelt emotions, and sincerity, my friends!