Painting banksia, any ideas?

Has anyone ever tried their hand at painting Australian banksia flowers (or other wildflowers)? I want to put a local spin on a few of my designs for a challenge (and a change!), and trying a few ideas out. The banksia's iconic, but it's so detailed that I wondered if anyone's got ideas on how to do it relatively fast but keep the essence of it? Or just how to do it at all?



There's the Banksia men from Snugglepot & Cuddlepie as a potential starting point as well:

I got this.... let me get my paints.

Here ya go!
Step By Step: Australian Banksia Flower

Hey.... thanks!

I can't believe you made a whole blog post

It was good fun to read how you went about it, I like how you used block colours to fill it out, and the character of the leaves is right on. I'm going to have a shot at it this afternoon – you've given me some ideas, so I'm looking forward to it.

Shall keep you posted!

you are most welcome. Please post your results!

And no problem, i love making blog posts. ^.^

Here's my shot.

I triple loaded my sponge with white, purple, light orange. Teardrops in white down first section, light yellow second section. Not sure if I like them more minimal like the top or flicked and denser like the bottom. Then metallic green with a filbert for the leaves, and white detail to finish.





I'm not sure how it'd work as a design, but it's fun to try and adapt difficult shapes to face painting technique!

Looks good. What's the time on it?

Only thing I think I would change is the top red/purple part of the flower, the white flicks are too uniform. Need some more layers and overlap. But that's about it.

Technique wise, I think you could skip the filbert and just use a #4 for the leaves by pressing it down. Saves a few seconds of switching tools.

nice! both of yours look prettier than the real one, lol