Welcome to Sophie's Nature Art!

So far, I have published my pictures of the Presented in order. Today I would like to interrupt this “tradition” for once. 

I think I have a good reason for this. As a sister, it is a very special experience when your older brother ties the knot. This happy event took place last weekend in beautiful weather. It was a wonderful, even a perfect day. 

As an amateur painter, I naturally asked myself what I would paint my brother and sister-in-law to mark this special occasion. I carried this question around with me for several months, but I couldn't come up with a brilliant idea. I knew that they both love nature, the mountains and faith. As they will soon be moving from Carinthia, Austria to the Czech Republic, I thought I would paint them a Carinthian landscape as a reminder of their old home. But that was actually a bit too boring for me given the special occasion.
My brother himself finally gave me a helping hand. The painting was actually intended as a surprise. But some time before the wedding, he asked me if I could paint them a picture to remind them of this special day instead of another wedding present. He specifically didn't want a landscape, but a romantic motif. 

Although it was already a rough direction, I still lacked a brilliant idea. I don't really have the courage to tackle people yet, so I was left with nature motifs. So I asked my younger brother for help. I knew he had a whole collection of photos of beautiful animals. I asked him to send me some romantic animal pictures, which he did. In the end, I got stuck on a pair of swans.

But painting the swans with just water was too boring for me. Besides, how was this motif supposed to be reminiscent of the wedding? I took a closer look at the wedding invitation. The theme color was lavender and there was a text from the Psalms on it. So I was able to incorporate these elements into the picture. 

As the bride and groom love nature and mountains, I looked for a suitable background and tried my hand at a first test photo.

But I wasn't satisfied with that. Overall, it was too boring and not romantic enough. 

So I thought to myself: get rid of the trees and add a waterfall to the picture! To make it even more romantic, I also wanted to paint the whole scene at sunset. Et voila: attempt number 2 was completed within an afternoon: 

Nevertheless, I was not yet satisfied with 100%. I was still missing a bit of contrast. But overall I liked the design much better. So I went on to paint the large picture. I tried to bring the violet into the picture everywhere with yellow in the sunset as a complementary contrast. In the original size, I was also able to work in more details.
I painted the picture in three or four days and changed a few details in the days that followed.
On the whole, I am satisfied with the overall work, although I still see some potential for growth.  

What I learned while painting this picture was how difficult it is to find the right composition and to make a picture coherent without it becoming too boring. The painting kept me busy for a long time and I put a lot of heart and soul into it because I wanted it to be as perfect as possible for my little brother. But even if it's not absolutely perfect, the bride and groom were very happy about it. They showed it to their future colleagues in a Czech health center, who immediately wanted to have all their guest rooms decorated with my pictures. That was a great compliment for me as a beginner in acrylic painting, as they already have very beautiful oil paintings hanging in their rooms. 

In the slideshow you can follow the creation of the Swan Romantic once again:

That was the story behind my swan romance. For me, this picture is and remains something very special. In the next post we head to the far north to a stormy coast!