“Bloom Within” Gouache Studies: Exploring Double Exposure Floral Portraits

I’ve been dreaming about painting this double exposure style for months now – there’s something so captivating about the way women’s silhouettes can hold entire gardens within them. The combination feels both mysterious and deeply feminine, like secrets blooming from within.

Right now I’m working on a larger painting in this style, but it’s one of those pieces that’s taking its sweet time. You know how it is – sometimes the bigger the canvas, the more precious each brushstroke feels. While I was waiting for that piece to reveal itself, I felt this urge to explore other compositions quickly.

So I grabbed my sketchbook and decided to paint these small 3.5×3.5 inch squares on an 8×8 inch page. “Bloom Within” became my little laboratory for trying different poses and flower combinations.

Painting small definitely has its own set of challenges. Working with such tiny brushes to get the face profiles right was honestly frustrating at times – there’s so little room for error when you’re trying to capture the curve of a cheek or the line of a nose in just a few strokes.

I also made things harder on myself by diving straight into paint without any preliminary sketches. I wanted to stay loose and spontaneous, but that meant I had to make several corrections along the way to get the silhouettes just right. Thank goodness for gouache – it’s opaque so it’s forgiving when you need to paint over mistakes and start fresh.

These little studies taught me so much about balancing the weight of the figure with the delicacy of the flowers. Each one feels like a different woman carrying her own unique garden – some wild and abundant, others more gentle and contained.

Sometimes the smallest experiments lead to the biggest discoveries. These quick studies are already sparking ideas for future paintings.

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