Developing Beauty
Brandy Kraft’s interest in nature inspired her to create her own hybrid species of flowers
Brandy Kraft’s interest in nature inspired her to create her own hybrid species of flowers
Mankind is destroying the planet. This destruction has made me fascinated with preserving nature. I started with painting flowers—thousands of flowers in all states of life and decay. For years now, I have wanted to preserve their beauty and prevent their extinction. Then suddenly in my dreams and in my subconscious I started having visions of new, non-existent flowers. I started painting these strange new hybrids and realized I was creating not only new species of flora but I was building a new world of my own. Flower by flower. After a bit of persuasion, I convinced my husband to leave life in New York City to move back to Sweden so I could follow in the footsteps of famous Swedish botanist Carl von Linné. Each new hybrid flower species I create is now documented and cataloged in a scientific manner as I continually draw inspiration from the famous “father of taxonomy.” I am building a new, magical hybrid world and this is just the beginning. When I begin a new hybrid, the flower takes shape in my imagination. I conjure up as many possibilities as I can and then go out on a hunt for petals to fulfill my vision. After pillaging the local flower markets I come back to the studio and rip the flowers apart. I then spread them all over the studio floor. This stage is vital to my visualization process and it helps me to see all possibilities at once. I spend quite a bit of time in this stage as I explore the realms of composition, texture and color in order to bring my new species to life. The flower slowly comes into fruition in a physical three-dimensional form with a little
glue, needles and some luck. Once I’m happy with it, I set the new creation into a black photo box and then light it for its portrait. After I’ve captured a photo, which matches closely enough the vision in my mind, I get to work on the painting. The first part of the painting is the drawing. I like to make two or three thumbnail sketches of the flower to familiarize myself with the new creation. It helps me to visualize a clock and think about what lies at the points, 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock. Once I get a feel for the new flower’s components, I draw it on a larger scale. I work freehand, using my sketches and the original photo as references. I sketch an outline of the hybrid flower directly onto the black canvas using a white chalk pencil. The soft chalk is forgiving, as in it’s easy to wipe away mistakes. After this I fill in the outline of the hybrid with white gesso. I find that the underlying bright white really helps the colors reflect the most light, and what is color without light? After the white gesso dries, I use my references again as well as my visualization clock to lay down a road map for the rest of my journey. I don’t need a lot of detail, but I like to mark with pencil, some of the major compositional elements sort of as landmarks, so I don’t get lost once I start to paint. Sometimes I erase the lines just before I paint an area, especially if I’m using a transparent color or something like yellow because the lead can lead to a dirty looking color. When I start painting there are a lot of things that I think about. Color, light and shadow are the most important. All of these things work together to contribute to the success or the believability of the painting. When I mix color, I am constantly thinking about the light. The warm daylight I shoot the photo in is super important to remember throughout the rest of the painting. The type or temperature of the light source determines the temperature of the shadow—it’s always the opposite. If I am using a warm light source, shadows will be cool. A cool light source? Warm shadows. This rule of thumb helps when determining shadow tones becomes very nuanced. Sometimes I have to repeat it to myself over and over like a mantra when I am painting and feel like I am on the verge of going colorblind. Another really fun thing about shadow and color is color transference, which is when the color from one petal reflects onto those around it. This is a natural phenomenon that happens all the time with all objects that reflect light. I happen to think it is especially beautiful when it occurs
in flowers because it adds a subtle and delicate element of surprise. This transference appears often my paintings and I think it gives them a wonderful sense of unity. Overall, I feel like my paintings and my painting practice are in step with the fragile balance of nature. All of the elements work together, from each fundamental ingredient in the flower’s form to the interplay of light, shadow and color. All of which coexist on the canvas. I try to stay in tune with these aspects in all areas of my life, and hope that they are the most visually evident and appreciated in my artwork.