Peonies...Ala Prima and other issues

I've been dealing with a new problem which, for an artist, is a bummer. Dry eye. Seems I've had it for a long time but it never bothered me much. Lately, however, it's causing me to miss full days in the studio. My eyes become so painful, I can't focus them on the subject or the paint. Thought it was the paint fumes, but even when I locked myself out of the studio for a few days, it didn't improve. Medications seem to affect it and I'm on a campaign to find something that will help besides the usual drops and flax seed oil.

OK. Complaints aside, I did manage to get into the studio for a little while. I consider my ala prima paintings to be my day job. Now that's not a bad thing. I enjoy this work and learn a lot from doing it, but I have to work at getting inspired some days. Here's one I did for my daily painting blog and like before, I'll illustrate a little of how I did it.

First, here's the set up.

As usual, I put a little burnt umber gesso on the piece of unstretched canvas (later to be backed on board)and taped off the 11" x 14" format.

As you can see, I just set off the area I wanted to fill using some dark umber

paint. I then started to block in the shadows and the background. I used mixtures of Alazarin Crimson and Cadmium Red Light to make the flower colors. The shadow color here on the blooms was a mixture of Alizarin Crimson and umber with a touch of Ultramarine Blue.

The details were only a matter of putting in the lights. I find that Naples Yellow makes for a brighter white than just white and that it also warms

the pinks other light areas. I tried to keep the paint thick for the lights. In areas where I wanted the flowers to come forward a bit, I pushed the background back by cooling it. I generally use a sort of green umberish background for my still lifes because it gives a feeling of atmosphere. But here I just wanted to try a little color in the background. I captured a bit of atmosphere by using the background color in the vase and the blooms as well. In the photo above, you can barely see the Asian bell starting to appear. I bring it to life in the last step when I lay in the greens and adjust shadows and lights on the table. Here's the final image.

"Peonies and Asian Bell"

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