Oil Painting Lesson for Peonies and Asian Vase

Here’s a close up of the leaves and table flowers. It’s not that noticeable in the photo but I’ve been enhancing some of the blooms by deepening color and scumbling lites in a a few places. Tips of the petals have more color in them and I’ve added this in a few places. Often things that are not at first noticeable to you, become more so as time goes by. These less obvious statements can be brought out in later passes.

There’s a bit of reflected pink on the side of the vase where the flowers rest against it. I’ve added that as well. Notice there are no shadows yet on the table top. Generally these are added even before I start a painting, but I opted to use a glazing method to put them in afterwards. I wanted to develop the leaves a bit more before I do that.

So here I’ve started to add some of the stems and more leaves. In order to differentiate the ones in front from the leaves in back, I’ve lighted some of the edges on the leaves. I’ll refine these even further in the last session.

Notice the cast shadows from the leaves on the table cloth.

I felt that the peony on the left side was a bit too lit up and it was stealing the show from the larger one which is the main focal point of the painting. Even though I loved the way that other peony looked, it’s never a good idea to sacrifice an entire painting for the purpose of preserving a single passage. So I mixed a glaze of the Quinacridone Pink with some green and started to knock it down a bit.
Now that the pant is dry on the other flowers, I’m free to add some modeling to some of the petals by adding more lights and darks. The lights are added with mixtures of titanium white which has high tinting strength and small amounts of Naples Yellow or the Quinacridone Pink – depending on what I’m after. If I add a white/yellow mixture, the petal will round outward. If I add a the pink, it will tend to retreat a bit. Not as much as if I cooled the mixture with green, but just enough to turn the petal away from me.

I’ve also done some more darkening on the apple on the left. The stems and leaves are easier to view here.

Oops. Camera is a bit tilted here. But I think you can get an idea. I’ve mixed some Ultramarine Blue with some umber to tone it down. A glaze mixture with the use of Maroger Medium was combined and then using a soft sable, I started to lay in the lines for the blue design on the vase. I’m careful here to maintain the structure of the vase which is not quite round, but slightly squared off. The design helps to describe the form.

The paint under the glaze is completely dry so that it’s safe to put the glaze on, and if I make a mistake, wipe it out with a brush that has been wet with thinner.
I took the time here to work some more on the petals of the flower resting on the table. I’ve darkened some of the leaves and created stronger cast shadows from them on the table cloth.

Here I’ve added more details. The design the top of the vase is done by making a mixture of shadow white with a touch of ultramarine blue. Remember this part of the design is in the shadow.

I’ve also refined the shape and thickness of the blue lines and darkened the shadow under the vase and some of the other objects on the table.

Viola! Finito la comedia. Or, in other words, done! Much nicer when you get to view the whole piece in one shot.

The final design is in. I’ve heightened the lights on the vase in a couple of places by scumbling in some lighter mixture here and there. The table top is a bit more lit up where the apples are. I’m also finally happy with the peony that is drooping off to the left. It no longer steals the show and tucks back nicely with some atmosphere around it. I’ve darkened the table cloth toward the bottom of the picture as well.

Well, the painting is done, signed and for the most part, both the client and myself are happy with it. Hope you like it too. Thanks for stopping by. Remember, in order to see the whole lesson in one easy read, check out the lesson on my website by clicking here.

“Full Bloom”
18″ x 24″, Oil on Canvas

How to Paint Peonies, Day Four

Today proved to be a trying one. I had contractors, engineers and inspectors banging all over the house and the constant interruptions had me banging my head against the wall and sniffing paint fumes in a vain attempt to escape it all.

But in spite of all the craziness, I did manage to get a few things accomplished. I had the curtain on the French door behind me open and so had a bit of cool light to paint by. Hence the bluish tint on the left side o the canvas. That shouldn’t prove to be too much of a difficulty here as I’m illustrating the last of the flowers in this picture.

I re-entered the painting by first giving a slight blue glaze to the background to cool down some of the yellow tint in the umber background. I’m still not sure of the tapestry look and may decide before painting in the leaves to just make the background solid. It feels a bit distracting to me.
After glazing the background, I finished off the last three flowers. These are still not quite done at this point and I’ll get back to them before the close of the session. It’s difficult to work out all the values on the flowers until their surroundings are painted in.

Time for the apples. I started with their shadows by mixing in a bit of burnt umber and a touch of yellow ochre for reflected light. Then I was on to the shadows of the apples. I started with raw umber and some Cadmium Yellow Light mixed in. This was further toned with a little Cad Red Light. I mixed this lightly with some toned down Thalo Green for the more colorful spots on the apples. A touch of Yellow Ochre and white for the reflected light becomes evident in the next photo.

Note that an object’s truest color will be on the turning edge just as the light on the object turns to shadow. The core shadow follows this. It’s easiest to remember this by just noting that light washes out color and shadow obscures it.

The lights are added in here with some Cad Yellow Light, white and a touch of umber to tone the brightness (although that’s hard to tell from my camera). The reflected lights are more evident here.
I’ve also painted in the table top, although this too will be brightened eventually. A bit of Yellow Ochre and Burnt Umber with some Naples Yellow lights up the table.

The top right hand corner of the background looks a bit warm here. Some of that may be due to the fact that the cool light from the door behind me is not falling on that portion of the canvas.

In either case, I’ll need to reassess in the morning with natural light coming in evenly. I have a skylight just outside the old studio that can be used for this purpose. I use two color corrected Ott Lights additionally, but find that the skylight is best for this. I will be such a boon when the new studio is finished. I have a seven by five foot arched north light window in it. Perfect for this sort of thing.

I’ve started to put in the shadows for the table cloth. Notice that I’ve painted out the leaves here. I know where they’re going and have decided that it would be best to paint them in over the table cloth. This is always a last minute judgment call for me as I often paint them together with the cloth and background. I’ve been taking my time here so things are developing a bit differently. Shadow color is a bit of black, Cad Yellow Light and white. I’ve warmed it a bit with Burnt Umber.

I simplified the table cloth and reworked it several times before I felt I could leave it for a bit and move on to the cut apples. Like everything else, I’ll revisit it several times during the next painting session. The cut apples were done much the same as the larger ones. Note that I’ve gone back and darkened the interior of the other apples.

The lighted table cloth is done with Naples Yellow and White. This is just a slightly warmed mixture of white, not a cooled mixture of yellow. But the temperature difference is enough to make the table top pop. Additionally, I took small amounts and used it on the flowers in a few places where I wanted the light to sparkle on the flowers. That warm light really works against the cooler pink . I know it sounds strange – but remember temperature is relative. My pinks are cool pinks and the white is a warm white.
This is perhaps the best representation of what is happening in the painting thus far. The color is a bit softer in this photo and the contrast not as sharp as in the others.

I deepened the shadows around the flower at the bottom that is drooping off the table edge and heightened the edges so that it stands away from the table cloth. The table cloth and the back of the table itself are softly inferred in the background. A little light peeks in behind the cut apples. I’ve also taken some Quinacridone Pink glaze and brushing it into the tips of the petals.

There’s much I need to do here and I have only three days before they tear into my studio rendering it unusable for a few days. So tomorrow is another day. It’s midnight and I’ve posted this first to my website so I’ll copy it over to the blog in the morning. Nighty night.

How to Paint Peonies, Day Two

Well thanks for checking back in today. I actually painted this lesson over two days starting with the background yesterday and continuing with the flowers today. Here we go. If you’d like to read this lesson in a more consistent manner that flows from top to bottom without having to skip around blog style, click here.

The background was the first thing I started on with color. I generally choose an umber background for pink because the slight green tint sets off the pinks in the blossoms nicely. This mix was done with a combination of Burnt Umber and Raw Umber plus a bit of Cad Yellow Light and Naples Yellow. The lighter tones were done with a bit more Naples yellow. I was looking for a light feeling of tapestry here. As the painting develops I continue to work the background. I like to have it slightly wet as I work because that allows me to fade flowers into the background. Again – I apologize for the glare. Not much I can do about it under the circumstances. Each time I pause to take a picture, I have to turn lights on and turn others off. It’s a bit tricky and breaks my concentration so I try not to have to do too much in that arena. Also, what looks fine in the camera, often looks quite different once I download the picture.

I worked some darker umber and Ultramarine Blue into the background on the lower left hand side and into the shadows on the tapestry.

For the vase, I used my usual mix of black, Cadmium Yellow Light and white along with a touch of the background color. For the light struck area, I used Cremintz White with a touch of Ultramarine Blue. Some of the shadow color was added as well. This is only a preliminary under painting for the vase.

I vowed this time around that I would try to give more step-by-step on the flowers – so here goes. I used a shadow color which was mixed by combining Quinacridone Red and Cadmium Red Light plus a bit of Cremintz White. The Cremintz White is a very thick impasto white with low tinting strength. Good for low tints and where you don’t want to wash out the color. It’s also lovely for building impastos.
I brushed this color combo into the areas where the darker richer interiors of the Peony face away from the light. I used a bit of Cadmium Orange to place warmth into those shadows.

When I mix these colors, I try not to over mix them with a palette knife, but instead use my brush and whip them up a bit to where they are delicately blended – like making muffin batter. Too much mixing and the muffins go flat.

For the reflected lights – always a tough call – I used a bit of Quinacridone Pink which has more blue in it. This was mixed with a bit of background color that had been lightened with touches of white to gray it a bit. Shadows are always deeper near to the object which casts them. So I brushed a bit of Raw Umber mixed with Ultramarine Blue into the shadows closest to the Peonies. The vase is still very simple at this point. I’m only suggesting the shape at the bottom where the shadow curves a bit. Later, I’ll place some background color to deepen shadows and bring atmosphere forward into the painting. I’ve also deepened the shadows on the tapestry in the background.

Here’s the close up. You can see the brush work is kept light. When painting the inside of a flower, you have to figure that that part of the bloom is receding from you and paint it thinly – just as you would shadows.

Here I’ve started to put in the highlights on the lit side of the flower. The paint is quite thick. I’m using the same color that I used in the interior passages but lightened with Cremintz White. I’m using a 1/2″ DaVinci Filbert Bristle brush. Bristles are best for impasto work because they are just stiff enough to hold the paint.

For the initial strokes I used a 1/4 inch brush but decided that it looked too picky so I changed to a larger one and went to a technique that I’m comfortable with.

I didn’t have anyone to take a picture of me laying in the petals so I’ll have to describe the technique. After I’ve loaded the brush, I lay the bristle’s at a 30 degree angle to the canvas and starting at the center of the bloom I make the petal using one stroke by pulling the brush outward to circumference of the flower. I apply more pressure at the start of the stroke and lift off the brush at the back end of the stroke. This is a little tricky and takes some practice.
This stroke is more evident in the last two pictures.

Notice that the lights are bright, but there’s not enough punch or contrast between them and the shadows. This is because Cremintz is a low tint white. I’ll fix that in the end by using a bit of the same color mix but with Titanium White and some Maroger Medium.

I next moved on to the back ground flowers. These were mixed with a bit of Quinacridone Rose which has a bit of blue in it. You can see that color in the flowers facing away from you. Because they are in the background and less distinct, I softened the edges by brushing some of the background into them.

Notice the large bloom in the front and the smaller bloom just behind it. There’s not a huge difference in value here so I used a bit of edge control to push the one on the right back by making the edge of the flower in front a bit crisper. I also used little or no detail in the inside of the flower on the right. Less detail, less reason to spend time looking at it. Control your viewer’s eyes by the use of edges as well as values.

Notice that I’ve painted out the leaves. I decided I would rather design them as I go in the last sitting. Those are details that will be a bit demanding and may take more than one sitting to get right so I’d rather not have to paint background around them when I’m done. Instead I’ll use some Maroger to oil out the canvas and paint into it with the leaf colors when I’m ready. The background is an easy mix and can also be added if needed at a later point without having matching problems.

OK. I took another shot here to better evaluate the light. For this stage of the painting, I’m satisfied. I can see where I will want to darken some of the flowers on the left. This, however, is best left until they are dry and then I can just glaze into them. I rearranged the shapes of the larger flower and used the larger brush to do the petals. I have two more flowers to paint in the next session and then I want to re-evaluate the background and the overall shape of some of the blooms. Once I’ve tweaked those, I’ll start into the objects on the table.

For the background, I’m considering a glaze with a very thin coat of blue to cool it a bit. I can better evaluate it in the light of day however, and I’ll rethink it all in the morning. Good night and I’ll continue with you tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by.

How to Paint Peonies

“The Peony Commission”
Working Title

Peonies are such beautiful, lush flowers that it’s no mystery that they are loved by nearly all flower aficionados. I received this commission a couple of days ago and thought it might be fun to share the painting process with you.

The size of the painting is 18″ x 24″ at the request of the client. I sent her three compositional images and she decided on this vertical format. I’m glad because I’m a bit partial to this composition. Mainly this is because I love drama. Even in something as quiet as a still life, there can be great drama.

Notice how the composition is at eye level. You can basically divide the canvas into three areas. Below the table, the top of the table to the Golden Mein (about one third of the way down from the top, and the top one third where most of the flowers reside.
I chose an “S” composition for this floral as I often do in vertical compositions. Notice how the flowers form a backwards question mark or take an actual “S” direction. I chose green apples to offset the prinks in the flowers. I actually added some cut apples to the right after this picture was taken. They become apparent in the painting.

I first prepared the canvas a couple of days in advance by coating it with a thin layer of under painting white mixed with Liquin to help it’s drying time. I did this for two reasons: first, I prefer a smooth surface to one with texture and I like the way paint moves on a surface that has been primed with paint. The white under painting will cause the flowers to glow with an appearance of light emanating from within as the painting ages.

When the canvas was dry, I drew with charcoal the actual placement of the major elements and then sprayed the whole thing with a touch of hairspray. Nice to know that stuff is still useful for something.
Next I wiped on a thin layer of Burnt Umber mixed with Quinacridone Orange and then started to lift out the lights. I like this process of under painting because it allows me to make decisions as I go. If something doesn’t look right where I’ve placed it, I can easily move it by painting back into the toned canvas and wiping out the lights elsewhere. But my drawing was good here and I was pretty happy with the way the flowers were placed. I had made some changes to the flowers you see in the photograph until I was happy. Often, I won’t see things that need fixing until I start to get things on canvas. That’s why I can’t work from photos. Things looked flat in the photo I sent to the client but really started to fill out nicely when I started actually lifting out the lights on the canvas.

Here you can see the under painting developed further. I added a bloom or two to the left and filled out some other areas. I moved the flower on the table further to the right and the small one further to the left to bring out more of the “S” shape I was referring to. The large Peony in the top left of center is right about on the intersection of the Golden Mein, the sweet spot of the painting and where I want the viewer’s eyes to go. While it takes precedence now, it will be a challenge to keep it’s importance once color is added.

I pulled out lights where the light spills from the left across the vase. You might notice now that there is no design on the vase. That’s the last thing that gets added to the painting.
I’ve filled in some leaves and you can see now also where the apples and cut apples fall. I’ve brushed in some shadows as well to unify the piece.

OK. I’m about done here. The cloth is not quite finished and I’m thinking I’ll change quite a bit on there as the painting proceeds. I often move the light source to provide a few shadows and lit parts on the cloth in the front. I don’t want to do that until the majority of the painting is done as once the light moves, it’s difficult to get things back where they were. While a purist might say that the shadows will not be true to life, an “artist” knows that what works in a painting is not generally true to life in all cases.

I’ve lightened the background on the right. This will add more depth to the painting later. It won’t be bright, per se, but will be a softly shadowed mid tone to allow the flowers to fade into it. The left side will be darker.

All this, mind you, is subject to change. But for the most part, I’m happy with this first stage. Check back tomorrow or the next day to see the next step. Thanks for tuning in.

If the lesson is difficult to follow on the blog, I suggest you click here to follow it on my website where the type flows smoother. Just click on “Peony Commission” when you get there.

How to paint an Asian Jar with Flowers

Well, it’s been awhile and I apologize for that. I haven’t been publishing as much due to the need to take care of other business. The good news is I’m getting ready to enlarge my studio, the bad news is, that project along with all the others this summer is keeping me out of the studio.

But I’ve been busy nonetheless. I’ve worked out a link system to my website that will allow me to do the actual blogging a bit easier. Blogger’s set up makes it difficult to upload multiple images and still keep things compact and simple. It often takes me three or more hours to do a simple lesson on blogger. I’m hoping with the addition of a “Student’s Atelier” pages to my website, I will be able to keep things organized.Essentially, nothing changes for you as this blog continues to be the launch point for all lessons. So to begin, click here. If the link fails to work for some reason, just paste the following into your browser and away you go.

http://susanspar.com/Oil%20paint%20lessons.htm.

How to paint Magnolias and Brass in Oils

My apologies for not having published here for the past two weeks. Sometimes the necessities of making a living can really keep me busy – or too tired to do anything. I actually started to prepare for a session a couple of times and found myself 1/2 way through a painting before I remembered to take a picture! Well…here I am and I have a good session for you.

Here’s the set up. I recently swept into an antique shop and found this beautiful brass pitcher. I’m a sucker for brass and copper. They’re both such fun to paint! The set up doesn’t look very impressive here but the light in the studio was just perfect when I started to paint. Besides, the rest comes from artistic license and vision. My concept was for the light to pool a the round base of the pitcher and around the first flower. I wanted the rest of the fruit to gradually catch the light and then fade into shadow.

I’ve recently started working on linen for my larger pieces. I love the stuff. It’s a medium grade oil primed linen that comes in a large roll. I ordered it from Art Supply Wharehouse.

I usually paint on boards which I prime myself with gesso or face with canvas. In order to prepare this board, I cut out the linen, primed the board to seal it and then using Golden’s Medium Gell, I adhered it to the board and burnished it down with a brayer. A quick imprimatura of burnt umber and cad red and I was ready to paint. I laid in the drawing with raw umber, keeping everything simple. Then I mixed my background color – raw umber, cad yellow and a touch of cobalt blue. The lighter area is mixed with a bit more of naples yellow to lighten it. Next, I brushed in shadows on the table top.

Oops! I got carried away here and totally forgot to take a picture. This easily happens to me and I wised up after this and started setting my timer to remind me to stop and take a picture. The pitcher came together rather quickly. I mixed together some of the background color and some raw sienna. Another mixture a bit lighter with yellow ochre and a third mixture of yellow ochre and cad yellow. I have touches of cad yellow medium which is a sort of orangy yellow also. The highlights were built of cad yellow and white. At this point, the pitcher is in but not completed. I’ll save the finishing tuches for later. Oh…black was used in sections around the edges to lose edges against the background and for depth. The black was tempered with umber.

A couple of more tweaks done here to the handle. Highlights with with more of the cad yellow mixture were laid in to the scrolling work.

I also lifted out some of the color where the flowers would be. That’s one of the things I found strange about linen – how easily wet paint can lift from it.

I had to keep turning the easel around to take it out of the glare of the window, so I apologize for the strange angle of the canvas in these shots. Here I’ve laid in the shadow color of the lemons. I used some background color modified with cad yellow medium and cad orange to create the warm shadow color. The tough thing to remember about painting shadow color is that the thing to do is not necessarily try to match the color of the shadow, but the relationship of the color to the list side as well as the other colors around it. That’s a trickey thing to do right. Once you understand this, however, you will understand that paint is not light or the object you are trying to represent. It has it’s own qualities and laws. Understanding them is crucial to getting your objects to come to life.

Next I made a mixture from cobalt blue, cad orange and naples yellow for the shadow color of the blossoms. I also mixed in a bit of cad yellow for areas where light was shining through the petals. I laid this in carefully wherever there were petals that were showing in shadow.

A mixture of naples yellow and white made up my petals. I also made up a separate mixture a bit lighter for brighter highlights. I laid the petals in carefully – taking my time here to keep each petal separate. It’s allright to let the bottom levels blurr into each other. This creates a soft admosphere. But on the upper petals, if you want the flower to be recognizeable, you need to keep each petal distinct from it’s neighbor. Don’t belabor the petals. Paint them with a large brush and pay attention to their character. Load your brush with generous paint. The underblooms should be painted thinly while the uper ones should have body.

Once the blossoms were in, I laid in the center of the flowers with touches of burnt umber and cad orange. The pollen laden stamen were just tiny bits of naples yellow.

Here’s a closeup of one of the blooms with it’s colors and all its nuances.

The lemons were next. Using cad yellow light and cad medium, I laid in the lemons. I watched out here for the warm reflected light in the shadows. It’s lovely ahd can really help to set off the cool yellow.

I wasn’t happy here with the strokes on the lemon. I soon found that if the paint wasn’t laid in thickly, I’d be picking up paint already laid in. I intend to go over these tomorrow to correct stroke direction and refine the cast shadows a bit.

The last step was to put in the reflections on the table top and to lay in a few leaves and stems. Colors already on the palette were used here and nothing special in the way of mixtures was used. Tomorrow I may rework the lemons a bit but for now the piece is finished and on EBay.

Feel free to leave comments on this blog. I welcome questions and will try to answer them as best as I can.

Oil Painting Lesson on Glazing for Roses and Fruit, 14" x 18"

Day Two: I got into the studio early today excited with the anticipation of finishing my recent painting. Although I enjoy my direct ala prima paintings, nothing lights my fire more than bringing a painting up to a polish. Normally, I spend a lot more time on my polished pieces, but either I’m getting faster or I’m getting less “tight” on a lot of things that used to take me days. It’s probably something of both as I enjoy a more painterly feel but also like the polished look that that extra session or two gives. OK, nuff talk. Except there is one thing. I forgot to add this pic of my cats who had snuggled together for warmth in the studio patiently waiting for dinner yesterday. Rough life.

All right. When I got in the studio this morning I tested the painting to see where it was dry and where it might need more time. As I suspected, most of the painting, except for the white vase was dry. White – except for underpainting white – has a lot more oil in it and takes significantly more time to dry. No matter, I figured I could still swing a decent glaze on it. Before I began, I oiled out on most of the canvas that was dry with a bit of Maroger medium.

As you remember, I had intended to darken the background a bit and so first thing I mixed a glaze composed of thalo green, alazarin crimsen and a touch of raw umber. I laid this in with a very large soft sable brush. I mainly stayed on the edges of the painting. My intent was to bring out the light in the center of the piece and around the flowers.

I like the way this came out. Glazing into a background provides a feel of stained glass. The light hitting the canvas goes through the glaze until it hits the canvas and then bounces back. If you use pure glaze (which I haven’t) from the start, the effect is quite dramatic. It bears saying here that if you intend to do your entire painting by building up all transparent glazes, then you need to make your underpainting nearly perfect and about three keys lighter than the actual values you want to achieve. The reason for this is because the multiple glazes will darken the image significantly as you proceed. I like to use a combination of opaque paint and glazes. If done correctly, this can still be quite dramatic.

My next step was to work on the fruit. Using the same combination of cad red light, alazarin crimson and cad yellow with varying degrees of naples yellow, I built up the color tops of the plums.

Then using some quinacradone magenta mixed with the alazarin crimson, I created a glaze and darkened areas of the fruit where the turning edges where and the shadows.

I used a little cad red adjusted with the magenta to make some reflected light on the plums. In cool light set-ups, the reflected light on objects is generally warm. The last step was to mix a small amount of the magenta with white and scumble this on to create the bluish haze of the plums.

For the grapes I followed much the same steps but used a bit of cad orange to create the transparent color of light passing through the grapes.

The highlights were the same color as the bluish scumble but with a tad of naples to warm and lighten them. After applying them, I took the back of my brush and squiggled it on each highlight.

The last detail for the grapes were touches of red here and there and then, of course the stems. Just some yellow ochre. I thinned the mixture with some copal painting medium and used a small round for the detail.

At this point, I lightened the table cloth and brightened the top a bit with a scumble of naples yellow and white. If you can’t get it bright enough on the first day, you usually can on the second. That cloth lit right up. I did the same for the table top, keeping my lights close to the fruit. I also used a bit of glaze in the shadows of burnt umber to darken the cast shadow directly under the fruit.

Now I turned my attention to the pot. I mixed a glaze of ultramarine blue and a bit of cobalt. I thinned this out quite a bit with Maroger and using that same small round sable brush, I laid in the design. Once I was finished with the basic design, I went back in with a liner brush and put in the outlines and details on the design. This didn’t take quite as long as you might imagine. Probably the most difficult part was the single line at the top and bottom. I simplified the design overall by skipping another horizontal line that appears on the actual pot.

Lastly, I put in the reddish leaves you see on in the foliage and then using some darker blue/green glaze, I pushed some leaves back and scumbled some into the fore ground. I checked edges to be sure the ones I wanted sharp, were sharp and the rest I softened. At this point I took a cup of coffee, sat back and just visited with the patient for awhile. The last thing I did before signing the piece was to mix another darker glaze for the base of the cloth. I darkened it and then also put in the other side of the cloth behind it. If you take a look at my daily painting blog, you can get a close up of the flowers. Viola. Done.

How to Paint White Roses

“White Roses on a Rainy Day”
9″ x 12″ Oil on Canvas Panel

It was raining today and my body hurt from an overkill on exercise (too much racquetball and hiking). I had a bad start to my day and it was raining out. I needed to do a supply run and by the time I got to my studio, I was exhausted and in a rough mood. But work harkened and I answered the call. Actually I welcomed the silence and stillness of my studio today and once the door was closed, I relaxed into my chair and began the piece I’m going to demo tonight while Nalie (Boo Boo), my cat, sleeps on my lap.

I started with a simple lay in of values with raw umber. I usually do more of an underpainting, but felt a bit pushed for time because of my late start so I took a short cut. At first I considered doing my background in a greenish umber so I laid that in and lightened some of the space to the left of the vase by adding cobalt blue and naples yellow.

The cloth was green so I started laying in the shadows with a mixture of sap green and some alazarin crimsen.

There’s a bit of quinacradone magenta mixed with the umber wich I just splashed on behind the flowers on the table cloth. Not sure if I wanted this to stay or not at this point.

Here I’ve just finished laying in the background – right over that red and nothing much has changed.

Except that my Maine Coon, Simba, decided to join me by pushing against the door. After much complaining, I got him a pillow and made him comfortable. Dogs have owners, cats have servants.

I picked up this vase at a garage sale for a song and love it because of the great floral design on it. This sort of thing can be daunting for a newbie painter and even for an experienced painter it can provide a challenge. If you just treat the design as part of the whole vase, you’ll have less problems. The design actually helps to describe the shape of the vase. I mixed the colors needed for the blooms with mixtures of naples yellow, cad red light and small amounts of yellow ochre. The greens were mixtures of sap green, alazarin crimsen for muting and darkening and cad yellow light and sap for the leaves on the vase. I tried to pay attention to the values of the decorations on the surface of the vase. In other words, if a flower was in shadow, it was the color of the flower in not the local color of the flower. At this point, the vase looks pretty flat and sort of pasted onto the background. Things are still pretty raw.

Here you can see that I’ve softened the edges of the vase. With a lightened version of the background color on the shaded side (right), I’ve laid in the shadow shapes for the roses. For the darker tones on the left side (lighted side) I’ve worked in some yellow ochre and touches of cad orange.

I thought that it would be nice to warm up the background a bit so I added a touch of cad red and white with a touch of quinacradone violet to the lighter areas of the background and pulled some of it into the vase for atmosphere. I’ve also started to add in leaf color here too and build shadows under the leaves with darker strokes of sap and alizarin crimsen. You’ll notice that I put a little light behind the vase on the right side beyond it’s shadow. This gives the illusion of depth to the painting. I’ve added some details to the flowers on the vase by putting in some dark accents.

Boo Boo came into the studio at this point and also complained mightily that Simba had the best chair and what was he supposed to do? Sit on that cold floor? Hmph. OK. Out came my felt vest and a warm place was made for him next to Simba. At least he wasn’t walking through my palette – something he’s done on at least one occasion before.

OK so settling in again, I started to add the lights in the roses. I made up a mixture of naples yellow and white and thickened it up a bit with Maroger Medium. Great stuff. Using a small 1/4″ filbert bristle, I scooped up gobs of the mixture and laid it in on the edges of the blooms where I wanted the most light. I literally sculpted the flowers. Using a soft 1/2″ soft bright sable, I made sweeps to suggest the broader edge of petals as in the flower laying on the table top. I’ve also pushed in the leaves here as well and suggested some up at the top near the blooms. I made the flower at the top larger to balance the bouquet better. Hmm. Still looking a bit flat at this point.

Well. It may have looked flat, but there wasn’t that much left to do. I brightened the background, added some darker notes to the flowers and punched up the details on the vase flowers.

The vase still needed some dimension so I added a few darker notes to it’s right side and some lit ones to the left. I created a cast shadow on the vase from the rose that is drooping on the left. Then I added some dimension to the leaves by sculpting them with a palette knife. Final touches were added by putting some lights on the table cloth and deepening the shadow under the vase. A little dab of reflected light on the right side of the vase and I was done. There’s a better close up of the flowers on my other blog http://www.susanmartinspar.blogspot.com.

Painting Tips on Peonies in Cool Light

“Peonies and Lemons, cool light”
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Suffering from a major headache, I didn’t take a lot of pictures today while working. Just pushed through. But I wanted to talk a little bit about this painting because, despite the headache, I really enjoyed working on it today. I started it much the same as I always do with a wash of burnt umber. I knew I wanted a dark background (I’m a sucker for chiarascurro) so I started with my usual base of umber and then added some ultramarine blue to darken it on one side and some naples yellow and raw sienna on the right to lighten it a bit.

The lemons were executed with zinc yellow and bits of black and umber for the shadows. The peonies were simply done and I was amazed at how quickly they popped off my brush. These were done with Alazarin Crimsen, Manganese Violet and touches of cad red light mixed with, of course white. The centers had a bit of cad orange in them. To push the blooms back, I used a bit of the background and some green from the lemons to gray out the reds.

The vase wasn’t glazed but instead I just built it out of thick paint and used cobalt blue for the design. I nocked down the white with umber and a bit of naples yellow.

I’m paying a lot of attention to edge control these days and trying to make each brush stroke count. David Leffel says that a poor brush stroke deliberately made is far better than one that has been just splashed on without forethought. I have to agree with this because some of my best work is work that I have been deliberate and totally present for. It’s an act of consciousness and a bit of meditation. It takes tons of concentration, and I generally turn off all music in the studio in order to just be present.

I talked about the discipline of “showing up” in one of my posts and today was a good example of that. There are days when the paint just flows off the brush and all the relationships manage to come together. But if you don’t show up, it can’t happen. I had a miserable headache and the urge to just lie down with a cold compress nearly kept me from walking through the door. I awfully glad I did. This is a beauty of a painting. Painterly but detailed. I love the cool light and feel pretty good about the color relationships as well.

The area of color relationships is another topic altogether. Duane Keiser says, and who am I to argue with the guru, that mixing the right color is pretty much instinctual. It’s color relationships that give students the most trouble. I’m not sure if I completely agree with this. I have a couple of students that are really struggling with the issue of temperature. But most do get it pretty quickly. Relationships, though, that’s another story. The questions must always be asked when working from life, “is that color warmer or cooler, darker or lighter than the one next to it?” Also, it’s not enough to just question the immediate relationship but also how each color affects all the other ones in the painting. What looks fine on the palette often translates to “agh!” on the canvas. I have my students work always with a color wheel next to them.

Enough of these ramblings. I’ll be talking more about color relationships and how to better judge them in future posts.

How to paint Hyacinth

A couple of days ago, I painted my new Le Crueset Pitcher. Today, I decided to use it again for some Hyacinth. I often don’t know what I’m going to paint when I go into my studio. And, although, I hate to say this, at times it feels just like a “day job”, a dirty word in the world of art. So I have to dig a little for inspiration. This is more common than you think. Most hobbyists claim that they just aren’t inspired every day and that’s why they choose to only work a couple of days a week in the studio. A professional or serious artist doesn’t have that luxury. We have to show up regardless of how we feel about it on any given day. That’s discipline. Besides, magic often happens – but not if you don’t show up. So, I show up. But sometimes, I have to look for my muse who’s more often than not, hiding under the dust bunnies in the corners of the studio.

Sometimes it’s just a case of asking myself what would make a good concept to fulfill on canvas. Sometimes, I pour through old sketches or photos I have on disc. But for this and my other blog, I usually go to the market to see what flowers or fruit I can find. Today, I just looked at that yellow pitcher and asked myself what colors would set it off. Well, violet or purple of course. So the course was set. Hyacinth filled the ticket.

I didn’t have a canvas that was already toned, so I had to work from one without. No problem. I did a basic layin of the overall shape of the set up using raw umber. Note the close attention to detail. Just kidding.

Once I had the basic shape with a few suggested blooms for inspiration, I began with the background.

Using some raw umber and a bit of Naples Yellow, I started to work in the background tone. I used the Naples Yellow to cool the area surrounding the blooms.

I worked quickly here taking only about 3 minutes or so to lay in this tone.

For some reason, my camera didn’t capture all the steps for the vase here so I’ll need to talk about them. In the picture to the left, I laid in the table. I didn’t have a highly polished table top so I had to invent one. I used burnt umber, cad orange and burn sienna to lay in the table. Then I put in a suggestion of reflection for the yellow pitcher. I also grounded out the pitcher and it’s corresponding shadow. The shadows were laid in just before I worked in the table top.

You can also see that I smoothed out the background using a large soft sable brush. Most of the initial layin work is done with large bristle brushes but I like sables for smoothing. You can also note that the light haze around the blooms has changed temperature. I used a bit of raw sienna to change it.

The pitcher is done with a combination of Naples Yellow, Burn Sienna, Cad Orange and a bit of the background color (raw umber) to influence the shadows on the vase. The pitcher remains simplified at this point. I’ll come back to it later.

Using a mixture of alazarin crimson (yeah, I know it’s fugitive but there’s no substitute for this beautiful color), ultramarine blue, umber, and white I made three mixtures for the basic color of the blooms. The ultramarine blue + umber + alizarin crimson mixture was used in the background of the blooms. I laid this color in rather lightly (scrubbing) in the background where I wanted a haze of color without detail. These were to become the blooms in the background out of the light. Then I used my brush to make some small blooms and petals. I tried to vary my strokes here. Everything is still pretty loose. I’ve included a snapshot of my mixing palette here. This is not my full palette which rests to the side of this one. This is made of glass and I use it for only the colors I’m working with. The other palette with all my colors is open and to the side. This allows me to have the luxury of a large mixing space.

You can just see the three mixtures here that I made for the Hyacinth. The duller one to the bottom then the purer blue/violet above it and the lighter version with white above that.

OK. Moving right along. I mixed some greens for the leaves from a bit of sap green, cobalt blue and white. For the background leaves, I used a bit of the background color to make it fade. I changed this later and I’ll point that out and the decision that prompted the change.

You can also see that I’ve laid in some of the other mixtures here for the flowers. Hyacinth have a lot of little petals which can drive you crazy if you try to paint each one. The best paintings leave something to the imagination so I put in a few petals every few inches and leave the rest for the imaginaton. By using a 1/4″ filbert and loading it well, I squish the paint down and twist the handle as I lift the brush. this gives the petal some definition and also some variation in the shading of each petal. I try to break up the shapes by punching in some holes with the background color. Most of the petals to the right are in shadow so no lights yet. The vase remains unfinished.

Here, in the final phase, I darkened the leaves in the background to make them sand out against the lighter haze behind the flowers. On top of the darker blooms, I added the lighter highlighted flowers that were catching the light. For some of these, I mixed in a bit of Naples Yellow to make them stand out against the violets. To help the blooms a bit, I put some quinacradone violet into the blooms and punched up the color a bit in a few places.

The color for the stems was just a bit of cad yellow and some of my green mixture from the leaves with a bit of white. When I put the stems in, I paid careful attention to the character of the stems – how they connected with the blooms and where and how they drooped. Often the character of a thing can be best described with nothing more than an edge or a turn of a corner.

The vase was finished up with some highlights. The shadows were enhanced a bit more with some umber. I took some of the violets and purples from the flowers and brushed them into the table to create the illusion of reflection and did the same for the blooms on the table.

Viola! Finished. Elapsed time: 1hr. 45 minutes (and a quick lunch break).