Friday, April 23, 2010

Painting the Blues


I was working on location in South Australia this week and stayed on an extra day to look around at some country properties and to call in at Jacqueline Coates' Salon Rouge Gallery in Kapunda. I painted with Jacqueline and Ingrid Winter while there. Jacqueline and Ingrid had some stunning hydrangeas in blues and also antiquey greens for us to paint from life. The flowers were in a simple glass jar vase. The flowers to right look more delicately lilac than they actually were, I think some flash washed them out in this shot. The photos left and below show them to be more as seen--very vivid and richly coloured.


The light was better in the big gallery room than it was in the studio, so we moved in there and set up easels and drop cloths. We painted in oils, and blocked the background and subjects of the compositions in quickly using sponges and palette knives. Then on to more tonal and color work. I enjoyed painting in a loose style, slightly hinting at impressionism.



The paintings developed quite quickly and it was a fun exercise. Here is my painting, as I left it to dry yesterday. I also got a lot of lovely photos of these flowers for my photo library. The colors were fantastic. I even love the colors on that palette...absolutely superb blues and greens.

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