To commemorate the longest day of the year, my inspiration for this floral watercolor was the bright red seasonal poinsettia flower and the Christmas amaryllis. The white amaryllis cut stalks “sings” against the bold and brilliant reds. I love the different shapes of the flowers beside the color vibrations of the complementary pigments.

I painted it in the manner of the Chinese sumi-e artists — broad, simple strokes, and loading more than one pigment on my brush and not going back into the painting to correct anything; that is the most difficult thing to do. Colors get muddy and opaque. My goal was to have a fresh and transparent result.

I used a variety of reds for the poinsettia: naphthol red, alizarin crimson, antwerp blue, quinacridone violet. I wet each shape with water on the Fabriano 100% rag paper to begin, and dropped in the mixtures on the paper allowing them to mix by themselves. By using this method, the results are more interesting and natural than mixing them on the palette. The soft yellow-greens of the amaryllis complement the reds.  The poinsettias surround or “frame” the amaryllis blossoms and move the viewer’s eye around the composition.