Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Arrival

This is the first step of my painting. I use cobalt blue and winsor violet as an underpainting for all of the shadow shapes in the petals. I tend to use the violet in the center of the flowers where there will eventually be a yellow color. The violet makes a beautiful shadow under yellow, avoiding the brown you can sometimes get when trying to create yellow shadows.

This is a close-up of the painting. After all of my shadow shapes are in place, I added some of my "triad grey" (aureolin, perm. rose, cobalt blue) to some of the shadows to give them a little more depth. I wet one petal at a time with clear water before I begin painting. From there, I begin overpainting the petals with perm. rose, quin. magenta, quin. gold, new gamboge, and winsor orange (red shade). Tipping the paper helps smooth the transitions between colors, and the water I painted on the petals "floats" the paint, allowing more movement.

I've finished the petals, and underpaint the buds and stems with winsor violet. I've used indigo to underpaint veins in the leaves, then overpainted with sap green.
The stems and buds are painted with pereylene violet and permanent rose. The winsor violet underpainting shows through, creating depth. My final step is to glaze over some of the lower stems with the triad grey to push them into the background. When you first apply this glaze, it looks pretty bad-- just give it time. As the grey dries it disappears, creating a subtle shadow.
I titled this painting "Arrival" 36" x 15". It was my first painting done while living here in Maui.

2 comments:

  1. So beautiful! Interesting to see the process. Amazing how much darker the colors appear when they're on white vs. the painted background.

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  2. Wow...this is a great demo. I am going to come back to this over and over. Thanks so much for sharing.

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