Stairwell Dithering

[firstfrost]

More paint has been applied. The wisteria is done (and it's particularly impressive when I stand next to it on the downslope, because it makes it clear that I had to use Magic Levitation Powers. harrock is jealous that I've gotten new shticks), and I've been starting the edge flowers.

I painted the irises first, and I quite like how they turned out. Then I started putting in the smaller flowers (I had this idea of taller irises anchoring little beds of smaller flowers), and I'm much more unsure of them. Thus, I turn to those with more aesthetic sense than I, for opinions.

• Here's what it looks like now. It's halfway between irises-only and irises-with-little-flowers.
• But I keep thinking I liked it better before. Maybe it's a question of keeping a clean colorway, or maybe it's that the little stencils just don't have the room to be as artistic or elegant...
• Or would it look better with the bed filled in with the rest of the little flowers?
• Or there's the different tack entirely of All Irises All The Time.
• Here's a version with all the leaves the same color green (approximately) as the irises.
• Here's multiple levels of little flowers. Fire sale on little flowers!
• This one is harrock's suggestion, of grass instead of flowers.

Opinions?

For those following other memes (paraphrased):
Me: Bah. I'm not sure I like the little flowers.
harrock: It's still a good project. I'm very impressed. It's pretty and I'm proud of you.
Me: Um... I'm not depressed, I just want to do it right. Oh, er, I see - "words of affirmation" is my lowest score.

Comments

My long-winded two cents

[merastra.livejournal.com]

Wow, you've been busy! Yes, the irises are very pretty. :-)

I agree that the greens need to match on the little flowers. I like what you've done in photoshop. It looks like they could stand to match even closer. Although in real life the greens of different plants don't match, in real life there's a lot more supporting texture and background filler which ties the look together. So that's another thought; if you wanted, you could get more stencils for misc small greener and dot those in the whitespaces.

One row of little flowers is better because the whole look is more realistic than iconic. If you had smaller units of greenery, they might work in a stacked configuration, but as it is, I agree that the stacks of little flowers look too iconic.

The grass is good. It looks a bit spindly and sparse though. Can you make it come closer to the edges of the irises? Or take some of the small sets of iris leaves and fill them out?

The All Irises plan has potential, but as shown I don't like them as much as the grass or 1 row of little flowers. To my eye, the height differential between the two stencils fights visually a little bit with the height change of the stairs. That's kind of a minor thing though, and possibly only bugs obsessive people. Also, they're separated by a lot of white which looks iconic again. I get the feeling that all-irises could work with a small amount of fussing.

Another thought, after bringing the greens on the little flowers closer, you may want to skip the yellow flowers. They stick out. Or maybe make them darker and orangeyier, like the yellow beards on the irises.

Here's a composite of all my little-flower ideas.
(http://photobucket.com)