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.

Nearly There--Golden Roses Continued

I spent lots of time with the golden roses painting today. Hours in fact ! And after feeling it went ugly on me, it came back and is improving. I spent time doing detail work and also shadows. In yellow, which is my most not-easy shadow color I think. I made up some color studies for getting some good shadows. IN the end I used mostly Quinacridone Gold, plus Australian red gold (which I had already used before today). Both neutralised with Dioxazine Purple. Quin Gold and Diox Purple are transparent. But with the purple, a little goes a long way ! Takes a very light touch. Both details and shadows are things that take me a lot of concentration. I also had a few corrections to make on the yellow and that is always tough. (Get it too dark and you have to correct with white and start that bit over again ! This has happened a few times on this painting, as always seems to with yellows !)

I work on an area and then when I can't take it any more, move to another...but generally I try to be doing the same sorts of things, because if I get one area moving toward perfection and leave the rest behind, it is tough to go back and bring them up to the same level as the one I paid attention to. This is especially true before stopping...because I know I will be away from painting here in studio this week due to work having me away interstate for a few days. So I need to have a clean stopping point !

Winston (and his mates) will look after this painting until I am back to work on it on Friday. (it is in good paws !)

Gorgeous Golden Yellow

Here are a few shots of my work in early stages progress and some of the close ups of the flowers it is inspired by...