spring flower - a card for my mother

AnMal · **Posted:** Tue Apr 30, 2013 1:50 pm **(#1)**

i've been very busy and very stressed this past week, so no gimp work and no gimp chatting allowed. the only exception i made was in making a birthday card for my mum. she loves flowers and flower paintings (she paints herself, in oil or with textile paint on fabric) so i thought i had to give flower painting a try, though it's not really my strong point. this is a pulsatilla vernalis, a spring flower that's very rare but grows outside the town where i grew up, where the pine forests meet the sandy heaths. i looked for english translations and found three: arctic violet (which sounds misleading to me, they sure don't look like violets!), spring pasque flower and lady of the snows - maybe one of those names rings a bell to someone!
i had to lie a bit with the background - the pulsatilla vernalis doesn't grow in places like these, but the more correct background i painted first didn't set off the flower as well as this one.

Oregonian · **Posted:** Tue Apr 30, 2013 1:53 pm **(#2)**

How very pretty. Your mom will really like that. Nice work!

Rod · **Joined:** May 16, 2010 **Posts:** 16170

That is gorgeous and your Mom is sure to love it.

AnMal · **Posted:** Tue Apr 30, 2013 2:01 pm **(#4)**

O: thank you! i hope she will, i posted it but don't know if she has got it yet.
rod: thank you!

molly · **Joined:** Apr 07, 2010 **Posts:** 14182

Very nice AnMal, love the texture on the text.

Esper · **Joined:** Jul 17, 2012 **Posts:** 2769

nice one !

there is a homeopathic remedy made from the flower and its called Pulsatilla

K1TesseraEna · **Joined:** Sep 22, 2012 **Posts:** 2089 **Location:** US

Amazing! If that's what you can do when you're stressed out...

Jas45 · **Joined:** Mar 04, 2013 **Posts:** 105

AnMal: That looks great. This is probably a silly question, but did you paint all those 'hairs' individually?

Mokonafan · **Posted:** Tue Apr 30, 2013 9:11 pm **(#9)**

Now isn't that an interesting flower!

I think it's pretty! Nice work!

Erisian · **Posted:** Wed May 01, 2013 4:24 am **(#10)**

Beautiful work AnMal.

AnMal · **Posted:** Wed May 01, 2013 6:21 am **(#11)**

molly: thank you! i had planned quite a different text but it took over the picture too much, i'm very happy with this one.
esper: thank you! i think that's another pulsatilla species that's used, though - the vernalis is protected in all the places where it grows, but i know other pulsatillas have been used as medicinal herbs in many parts of the world.
k1tesseraena: thank you, brother

! i don't usually work this well when i'm stressed out, i think it was just so good to get a break from what i was doing, even if it meant working til late at night.
jas45: thank you

. i used a hair brush made from ek22:s tutorial, so i didn't paint the "hairs" one by one, but not too far from it! took a bit of work.
mokonafan:

thank you, sister! yes, it is an interesting flower - when i still lived at home the whole family would go on little expedititons to the places where they grow just to stand around them and admire them for a while and then go home.
erisian: thank you! you said once you think it's hard to comment on my work, so i appreciate them all the more.

sallyanne · **Posted:** Wed May 01, 2013 10:11 am **(#12)**

Beautiful AnMal

AnMal · **Posted:** Wed May 01, 2013 2:32 pm **(#13)**

sallyanne: thank you

!