{"id":18210,"date":"2023-05-16T15:15:40","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T19:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/?p=18210"},"modified":"2026-04-01T06:51:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T10:51:53","slug":"blue-floral-portraits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/blue-floral-portraits\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Floral Portraits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Maya Angelou once said, “You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently I had been thinking about the idea of floral portraits, so I reached out to one of my favorite muses, Kieran Sequoia. She’s always up for a creative project. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Blue
Blue Floral Portrait #1<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

I can identify several things that contributed to the making of these blue floral portraits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before I became a full-time photographer in 2012, I studied floristry in London. I love flowers and gardening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have studied all forms of art since I was a child. I still take art classes whenever I can! Last year I took a cyanotype course with Bev Conway at Kimball Jenkins School of Art<\/a>. It was a wonderful course, and I made some blue floral work that I loved. I’ve been drawn to the color blue ever since. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a cell photo of the first floral cyanotype I made in the class. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"floral
cell photo of my first floral cyanotype<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

My library of art books is a place I go for inspiration. I have a couple about Maxfield Parrish. Parrish was an American artist in the first half of the 20th Century. He was known for romantic, neo-classical images and saturated colors. When I think of his work, the words “blue” and “floral” both come to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I do for most portrait sessions, I started a mood board on Pinterest. Kieran and I both added images we were drawn to. I analyzed the mood board for threads and put together a 1900s-Art-Nouveau-Maxfield-Parrish-inspired session. For Kieran’s wardrobe, I found this floral headpiece on etsy.com. The silk gown is from the studio wardrobe. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Behind
Behind the scenes<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

It was only later that I decided to process the portraits only in tones of deep blue. In my work, I tend to prefer a limited palette of between one and three colors. There were many colors in the floral crown: teal, green, white, orange, and red. The antique velvet room divider is a different green, and the silk gown Kieran was wearing is pink. The many colors all worked together in person, but together–for my taste– there was too much going on as a two-dimensional image. I wanted more harmonious shades, but also something unexpected. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Blue
Blue Floral Portrait #2<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Many thanks to Kieran Sequoia for collaboration on this project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maya Angelou once said, “You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us.” Recently I had been thinking about the idea of floral portraits, so I reached out to one of my favorite muses, Kieran Sequoia. She’s always up<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18223,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14,12,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal","category-photography","category-portraits"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18210"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22723,"href":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18210\/revisions\/22723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maundymitchell.com\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}