Yellow Chrysanthemums 3 and 4

Yellow Chrysanthemums 3 by Christopher Johnson


Yellow Chrysanthemums 4 by Christopher Johnson

Yellow Chrysanthemums 3 & 4 were the last artworks from that set of still life photos I took to use the watercolor look. I hope you enjoyed the series!

Here are a few of the great gifts at Zazzle with these floral artworks:

Yellow Chrysanthemums 4 Sticker

Yellow Chrysanthemums 4 Women's T-shirt

Yellow Chrysanthemums 3 USA Postage Stamps

Yellow Chrysanthemums 3 Mousepad

Yellow Chrysanthemums 2

Yellow Chrysanthemums 2 by Christopher Johnson

The second in a series of yellow chrysanthemum flowers with watercolor effects. This series is also available on Redbubble and on great gift products at Zazzle (in fact most of my work is even if I don't say anything :-P ).

Here are a few of the cool gifts with this floral artwork on Zazzle.

Yellow Chrysanthemums 2 Women's T-Shirt

Yellow Chrysanthemums 2 Mousepad

Yellow Chrysanthemums 2 keychain

Yellow Chrysanthemums 2 Greeting Card

Yellow Chrysanthemums 1

Yellow Chrysanthemums 1 by Christopher Johnson

I've been photographing quite a few chrysanthemums and I've been trying to do something different with the images each time. With this series, I'm working on giving the yellow chrysanthemum flowers a watercolor look in post processing. I really love how this look accentuates the petal edges and has great texture when viewed up close.


Here are a few of the products available at Zazzle with the artwork

Yellow Chrysanthemums 1 Coffee Mug

Yellow Chrysanthemums 1 Greeting Card

Yellow Chrysanthemums 1 Mousepad

Pink Rose Impression

Pink Rose Impression Artwork

Pink Rose Impression is my last rose artwork of 2009. It was from a reference photo I had taken in the spring so it really feels like I'm covering the year with this artwork.

It is a very beautiful pink rose flower in a water glass. Simple, charming, and elegant. A rose flower that is a beautiful memory with a touch of sepia to soften the pink and give it a romantic feel of times gone by. Nostalgia in pink. Available as a fine art print.



Pink Rose Impression by Christopher Johnson

I want to also remind you that almost all my art is also available as great art gifts, cards, and stamps at Zazzle.

Pink Rose Impression Greeting Card

Pink Centered Carnations 1 & 2 Ethereal Radiance and Contemplation

Carnations are my favorite cut flower since they are not common in gardens yet very cheap cut. They also keep nice for about 3 days.  They also come in quite a few different color combinations.  Roses are also easy to buy as cut flowers, but cut-roses seem to be inferior in quality compared to those I can find growing in parks or sidewalks.  Here are the first two in my pink centered carnation flower series. The centers are pink and the rest is white.


Pink Centered Carnations 1 - Ethereal Radiance by Christopher Johnson


Pink Centered Carnations 2 - Contemplation by Christopher Johnson

White Morning Glory 1

Morning glory flowers are not easy for me to edit so I was very happy with how quickly I was able to edit this morning glory photo I had taken a couple blocks away in late October. Since I had taken the morning glory photos, the city went through and cut all the wild flowers back to short-grass level. This shows you how important it is take your camera with you even to places you go regularly. You never know when it will be gone.

White Morning Glory 1

White Morning Glory 1 - Love Eternal by Christopher Johnson

Pink Chrysanthemums 3 and 4

Trying to see what else I could do with those pretty mauve-pink chrysanthemum flowers, I came up with these two. #3 was just featured at Redbubble this morning in the "in the pink" group which shows you how you never know what people will like.   My favorite is Pink Chrysanthemums 2 from the previous post.

Pink Chrysanthemums 3

Pink Chrysanthemums 3 by Christopher Johnson

Pink Chrysanthemums 4

Pink Chrysanthemums 4 by Christopher Johnson

Pink Chrysanthemums 2

Here is the second mauve-pink chrysanthemum artwork in the series from today's flowers. This one has a painterly impressionistic look. I'm very happy with it.

Pink Chrysanthemums 2

Pink Chrysanthemums 2 by Christopher Johnson

Creamy Yellow Rose

While people up north are getting autumn temperatures and colorful leaves, the weather is is only just starting to cool off as we start to enter the dry season.  While I wish I could get photos of snow and leaves for holiday themed artwork, I also enjoy having some flowers all year long.  In cold climates there is a burst of flowers in a few short months while in warm climates you have them all year but not quite so many at a time. Every plant has its season.

While walking back from the bank yesterday through Tultitlán and then Cuautitlán, I took a few photos of flowering trees and plants.  I almost missed this rose flower from a very tall shrub growing over a wall. The flower was above me in the light so as photos are judged, it was very bad lighting, but I thought it was very pretty so I took the photo anyway in hopes of turning it into art.

Creamy Yellow Rose

Creamy Yellow Rose by Christopher Johnson

Creamy Yellow Rose 2

Creamy Yellow Rose 2 by Christopher Johnson

Creamy Yellow Rose - Divinity

Creamy Yellow Rose - Divinity by Christopher Johnson

Little White Wildflowers 4 and 5Flores Silvestres Blancas 4 y 5

I feel quite happy with the results of these last two artworks in the white wildflower series. I hope they'll one day make a collector happy.

4 and 5 are both painterly with enhanced highlights and shadows with tonal contrast and some sharpening. It is also very interesting that it is much easier to do painterly artworks than works using other effects which highlight lines or form. I'd be interested in seeing if that is the case for other visual artists.

Little White Wildflowers 4

Little White Wildflowers 5

Little White Wildflowers 2 and 3Flores Silvestres Blancas 2 y 3

These two artworks were from the same photo session here in the "studio".  I again went for a painterly look because I wanted to keep them very soft and gentle almost delicate. I made the effect in the second one much more subtler than the third one because the painterly look made the flower petal edges so indistinct that it was difficult to view so I mixed some of the original back.  In the third version, I added extra highlights to the petal ridges and did some darkening around the edges. I like both of them for very different reasons. I think a collector might enjoy having prints of all three.

Little White Wildflowers 2

Little White Wildflowers 3

Little Yellow Wildflowers 1 Low-keyFlores Silvestres Amarillas 1

This yellow wildflower was pretty, but it is on a very sharp plant covered in tiny spines or thorns.  I gave it a low-key painterly look full of shadows and highlights with a canvas texture.

Little Yellow Wildflowers 1 Low-key

Little White Wildflowers 1Flores Silvestres Blancas 1

I took photos of some more wildflowers that I picked a couple weeks ago. I'd rather take the photos there, but the recent rains have flooded the park's paths and also the last time I spent more than 30 minutes in the park, one of the loser neighbors called the police inventing that I was doing some activity that anyone with good eyesight would know immediately that I wasn't doing that.

These little white wild flowers started blooming around the end of August.

Little White Wildflowers 1

White Oleander Flowers with a Bee 1

I took a few photos of this shrub in bloom while walking the other day. I didn't get a photo of the bee's head. I think it was trying to hide from me.

White Oleander with a Bee 1 Painterly

White Oleander with a Bee 1

Pink Wildflowers 1Flores Silvestres Rosas 1

I took photos of several wildflowers blooming in the nearby (about 5-6 blocks) park a couple weeks ago when walking to the tianguis. Unfortunately I dropped one of my bags (bolsas de mandado) on the way there so I had to put all my vegetables in the other one which made it extra heavy.

I fixed the lighting as best I could and made the background painterly. I think I sharpened it some too. I really am good at forgetting what I do. I don't want each floral artwork to look like the one before.

Pink Wildflowers 1

Pink Wildflowers 1 Antiqued

Queen Anne's Lace 1 & 2

Queen Anne's Lace or Wild Carrot is a wildflower with clusters of very small white flowers. I was sent several unedited photos by a friend and artist to experiment with and use in art. Here are the first two works.

Queen Anne's Lace 1

Queen Anne's Lace 1 has enhanced color and saturation to make the flower 'pop' simple yet effective with that extra saturation and other adjustments.

Queen Anne's Lace 2

This Queen Anne's Lace floral artwork had to be simplified because it just had too much detail, so I gave the entire background a painterly effect which gave it an impressionistic feel which one friend compared to Monet who made many wonderful garden paintings. I didn't give the flowers the same painting look so they stand out with most of their detail.



It was a pleasure to work with the reference photos. If you have some high-resolution photos that you'd like to have me include in my artwork, let me know in Twitter or Facebook.  Don't forget I'm also available for artistic digital portraits.

White Hibiscus 2 GraceHibisco Blanco 2 Bendición

A beautiful white hibiscus flower artwork that makes me think of grace. A subtle glow plays over the main flower in this floral art. The shading and different degrees of sharpness draw you in closer until you feel grace of the divine presence in your life.

Made with a reference photo taken by a friend and artist. Reference photo used (as always) with permission.

White Hibiscus 2 Grace

White Hibiscus 1 GlamourHibisco Blanco 1 Encanto

This hibiscus flower artwork is based on a reference photo taken by a friend who is also a great artist. I only spent about 3 hours doing the post-processing work. I think it came out very well.

White Hibiscus 1 Glamour

Esta obra de arte es basada en una foto que me envío una amiga que también es artista visual. Solo edite la imagen unas tres horas.

Red Rose Flower on White

Here we have a plain red rose flower on a white background. This image is only different from my normal floral artwork because the white background is a very bright white.  While it doesn't look great on a monitor, I think it would look nice on your wall. I'm also adding this image to Zazzle products.  It does look great on the preview products.

Red Rose on White

If you're interested in a print, consider my customized frame and mat selection. I think the green mat with red frame really attracts attention.

Gray Roses 1 Less Color (Mostly desaturated)

Gray Roses 1 Less Color

The only constructive criticism I got for my Gray Roses was that there was too much color in the artwork, so here is the same work with the saturation to about -60 or so.



My goal in creating the first gray roses artwork was to explore the concept of a gray rose,  so I wanted to have colorful leaves as if the gray flower color were normal, but I imagine that some people might find the colorful leaves to be too bold or distracting.

Which do you prefer? (see previous post for colorful gray roses)