Floral: Work in Progress

Hi there ! I continue slow work during the week, around work appointments, on the floral composition. Actually have not touched the flowers, am working on the urn/vase. It is coming along and needs a few subtle but important perspective corrections to its base. In the spirit of sharing the learning and development process, I share the following with you. It is amazing to find these "to-do's." Just looking at the canvas casually (without thinking about this), I feel like I do not see them. But I know to look for this based on working on my perspective detail, especially properties about ellipses (a weak point of mine, so I need to inspect and check for it). This is a tricky area I just do not (yet !) intuitively or automatically "see" or get right. Though by doing some study and also some metrics I can find it and know it is something I always need to look and check in my work. Maybe it is some comfort that there is always something to work harder on and to strive for !

So be patient and kind--I have not fixed it yet. (look for a future post for a pic with the corrections !) After the correction, the flowers will be next to work on.

Meantime: here is more wall painting in a vivid color. The feature wall of the studio guest suite. Color credit: Pomodoro by Porter's Paints. This color was absolutely exciting to see on the wall and to go up. Rich, deep and warm. A sophisticated red with a great personality that gets along with neutrals. A great mixer with Dreamy Teal in the Studio kitchenette (which can be seen through the doorway.

New Painting

Hello, from a blustery day in Sydney.

I do have paintings to continue working on, and it is hard to dive right into them after being away so long with recent business travel. I kept looking at the Lion #2 and wanting to work on him, but just kept looking at him instead. Some of you may recognize these paintings-in-progress from previous posts. I suppose this weekend and next it will be time to finish them. And I will do exactly that. As for the Lion # 2, I will work on him NEXT, but knew I needed to first break the ice with something else.

So today I started something new.

I have been wanting to do another floral composition. I have a few references that I have been thinking about. One with yellow roses that I am editing in Adobe Elements (as I learn to use that application). Another is very pink peonies and flowers in a white urn. I have wanted to do that one for awhile, so it won.

I sketched the main aspects of the composition in willow charcoal onto a canvas that I am recycling. This means the canvas had another painting on it that I decided I did not like too much, so I painted over it with Titanium White to make it a blank canvas again. The painting I painted over had some texture in it, so this new painting will have texture too, because its ground is not perfectly pristinely flat. That is ok with me, as I may use impasto medium in some of the flowers, or in the texture of the urn vase they sit in.

Here is a picture of the first underpainting. LOTS more to do on this, but today was about: 1) Getting the painting flow going again. 2) Getting the basic bones of the composition in place. 3) And having some navigation reference points to work from to develop it further.

The photo here shows the scale of the canvas compared to other objects, as you have Winston at right, offering himself as a comparative scale reference ! He seems very happy I am painting again (he loves watching me paint). This all makes me feel very much to be back "home."

Turquoise Teal Blues

Hello There, it is great weather here and the past weekend I was painting the upstairs studio. I had found a photo in a magazine while traveling and it had a feature wall in a gorgeous bright teal blue color. I liked it so much, I kept the pic. This past weekend I matched it up to a paint color by Bristol called Dreamy Teal. Which I have put in the studio kitchenette wall. And it looks great ! The studio is not done yet, but it is coming along (it doubles as a guest suite).

I must have had this color on my mind more than I realized, because when I reviewed my recent travel photos, I found a recurring theme of it ! I found:

A great looking retro bicycle in a shop

window in Montreal. A fabulous chandelier in a shop in the village of Farnham, in Surrey in the UK. Also in Farnham I saw this fantastic old timber fruit or veg storage cabinet.

I would have acquired any of these items if it had been more practical to get them home !

And flying into Chicago O'Hare airport (ORD), I got a great photo out the plane window as we approached the city, at the lakeside. It was a brilliant day and the lake was a great color.

I am sure this won't be the end of my love affair with this great color that can inspire dreams of water, sky, and freedom.