How to paint Poppies in a Landscape in Oil

"Days of Spring and Poppies", 9" x 12" on canvas panel

This was a quick little landscape I did as a commission piece. I was asked to do some poppies in a landscape and so I dug into a bunch of old photos from California days and put this together from memory and references.

I started with a quick lay-in with some raw umber to define where I thought my darker values should go. I just suggested some tree shapes and distant hills in the background. I wanted the clouds to be big puffy ones that reflected the movement in the rest of the piece. You can see those suggested as well.

So here I've worked in the sky with some cerulean blue and a touch of ultramarine blue and white. The clouds are naples yellow and white.

Basically the muted landscape greens and hills were worked out with mixtures of hookers green, cad hellow, violet, and white. I added bits of blue and ochre to tone the violet. Essentially, I started here with muted grayed mixtures which were merely compliments combined with white or yellow as necessary.

I wasn't sure where I was going with the road yet, but I knew I wanted cool shadows and warm lights, so I used some burnt sienna and white with yellow and touches of cad orange to make the warmer lights. The cool shadows were more of the violets and blues. I dropped in the poppies with mixtures of cadmium red light, cad orange and cad yellow medium. I cooled these appropriately as they moved further back in the landscape.

I put in some shadows to show that there was a drop from the grass into the bowl of the road. At this point the road started to look more like a wash and as that is a common site in California, I decided this was a happy accident that should be emphasized.

Here you can see that I AGAIN forgot to take a picture. This is actually the finished piece. But here's what I did. I brought out the clouds with more heavy brush work and paint and then started to work out the distant trees. I kept these cool gray greens on the left and warmed them on the right with olives and ochres. The sun is hitting the trees on the right and while it may be doing this on the left as well, the side most noticeable to the viewer is in shade. I threw in some highlights though to show some sunlit areas there as well. I punched in some sky holes for the birds to fly through and made some branches for the trees. Using a liner, I picked up a thick dab of orange and layed in a "string" of bright orange for the branches of the trees. The wash was starting to look better too and now I had my palette working for me so I laid in the violet shadows on the wash floor and dropped in some white and burnt sienna mixtures for the very back areas - really pushing the lights. I decided this was spring so there should be some water still left in the wash and brushed a bit of blue with white sparkles into the wash to indicate a puddle. I heightened the detail on the left side of the wash where the walls rise up to meet the grass. This didn't take much as the contrast in values did most of the work.

After laying in the poppies in the foreground, I added a few dabs for detail as these flowers are closer to the viewer. This was all that was necessary to make the the rest of the flowers come to life. Lastly, I added some lighter greens with more yellow in them to brighten the distant grasses.

I cooled the hills in the back a bit and then softened the line where they met the sky by running a dry soft brush over them. Phew. Done.

Painting Tips on Peonies in Cool Light

"Peonies and Lemons, cool light"
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Suffering from a major headache, I didn't take a lot of pictures today while working. Just pushed through. But I wanted to talk a little bit about this painting because, despite the headache, I really enjoyed working on it today. I started it much the same as I always do with a wash of burnt umber. I knew I wanted a dark background (I'm a sucker for chiarascurro) so I started with my usual base of umber and then added some ultramarine blue to darken it on one side and some naples yellow and raw sienna on the right to lighten it a bit.

The lemons were executed with zinc yellow and bits of black and umber for the shadows. The peonies were simply done and I was amazed at how quickly they popped off my brush. These were done with Alazarin Crimsen, Manganese Violet and touches of cad red light mixed with, of course white. The centers had a bit of cad orange in them. To push the blooms back, I used a bit of the background and some green from the lemons to gray out the reds.

The vase wasn't glazed but instead I just built it out of thick paint and used cobalt blue for the design. I nocked down the white with umber and a bit of naples yellow.

I'm paying a lot of attention to edge control these days and trying to make each brush stroke count. David Leffel says that a poor brush stroke deliberately made is far better than one that has been just splashed on without forethought. I have to agree with this because some of my best work is work that I have been deliberate and totally present for. It's an act of consciousness and a bit of meditation. It takes tons of concentration, and I generally turn off all music in the studio in order to just be present.

I talked about the discipline of "showing up" in one of my posts and today was a good example of that. There are days when the paint just flows off the brush and all the relationships manage to come together. But if you don't show up, it can't happen. I had a miserable headache and the urge to just lie down with a cold compress nearly kept me from walking through the door. I awfully glad I did. This is a beauty of a painting. Painterly but detailed. I love the cool light and feel pretty good about the color relationships as well.

The area of color relationships is another topic altogether. Duane Keiser says, and who am I to argue with the guru, that mixing the right color is pretty much instinctual. It's color relationships that give students the most trouble. I'm not sure if I completely agree with this. I have a couple of students that are really struggling with the issue of temperature. But most do get it pretty quickly. Relationships, though, that's another story. The questions must always be asked when working from life, "is that color warmer or cooler, darker or lighter than the one next to it?" Also, it's not enough to just question the immediate relationship but also how each color affects all the other ones in the painting. What looks fine on the palette often translates to "agh!" on the canvas. I have my students work always with a color wheel next to them.

Enough of these ramblings. I'll be talking more about color relationships and how to better judge them in future posts.

How to paint Hyacinth

A couple of days ago, I painted my new Le Crueset Pitcher. Today, I decided to use it again for some Hyacinth. I often don't know what I'm going to paint when I go into my studio. And, although, I hate to say this, at times it feels just like a "day job", a dirty word in the world of art. So I have to dig a little for inspiration. This is more common than you think. Most hobbyists claim that they just aren't inspired every day and that's why they choose to only work a couple of days a week in the studio. A professional or serious artist doesn't have that luxury. We have to show up regardless of how we feel about it on any given day. That's discipline. Besides, magic often happens - but not if you don't show up. So, I show up. But sometimes, I have to look for my muse who's more often than not, hiding under the dust bunnies in the corners of the studio.

Sometimes it's just a case of asking myself what would make a good concept to fulfill on canvas. Sometimes, I pour through old sketches or photos I have on disc. But for this and my other blog, I usually go to the market to see what flowers or fruit I can find. Today, I just looked at that yellow pitcher and asked myself what colors would set it off. Well, violet or purple of course. So the course was set. Hyacinth filled the ticket.

I didn't have a canvas that was already toned, so I had to work from one without. No problem. I did a basic layin of the overall shape of the set up using raw umber. Note the close attention to detail. Just kidding.

Once I had the basic shape with a few suggested blooms for inspiration, I began with the background.

Using some raw umber and a bit of Naples Yellow, I started to work in the background tone. I used the Naples Yellow to cool the area surrounding the blooms.

I worked quickly here taking only about 3 minutes or so to lay in this tone.

For some reason, my camera didn't capture all the steps for the vase here so I'll need to talk about them. In the picture to the left, I laid in the table. I didn't have a highly polished table top so I had to invent one. I used burnt umber, cad orange and burn sienna to lay in the table. Then I put in a suggestion of reflection for the yellow pitcher. I also grounded out the pitcher and it's corresponding shadow. The shadows were laid in just before I worked in the table top.

You can also see that I smoothed out the background using a large soft sable brush. Most of the initial layin work is done with large bristle brushes but I like sables for smoothing. You can also note that the light haze around the blooms has changed temperature. I used a bit of raw sienna to change it.

The pitcher is done with a combination of Naples Yellow, Burn Sienna, Cad Orange and a bit of the background color (raw umber) to influence the shadows on the vase. The pitcher remains simplified at this point. I'll come back to it later.

Using a mixture of alazarin crimson (yeah, I know it's fugitive but there's no substitute for this beautiful color), ultramarine blue, umber, and white I made three mixtures for the basic color of the blooms. The ultramarine blue + umber + alizarin crimson mixture was used in the background of the blooms. I laid this color in rather lightly (scrubbing) in the background where I wanted a haze of color without detail. These were to become the blooms in the background out of the light. Then I used my brush to make some small blooms and petals. I tried to vary my strokes here. Everything is still pretty loose. I've included a snapshot of my mixing palette here. This is not my full palette which rests to the side of this one. This is made of glass and I use it for only the colors I'm working with. The other palette with all my colors is open and to the side. This allows me to have the luxury of a large mixing space.

You can just see the three mixtures here that I made for the Hyacinth. The duller one to the bottom then the purer blue/violet above it and the lighter version with white above that.

OK. Moving right along. I mixed some greens for the leaves from a bit of sap green, cobalt blue and white. For the background leaves, I used a bit of the background color to make it fade. I changed this later and I'll point that out and the decision that prompted the change.

You can also see that I've laid in some of the other mixtures here for the flowers. Hyacinth have a lot of little petals which can drive you crazy if you try to paint each one. The best paintings leave something to the imagination so I put in a few petals every few inches and leave the rest for the imaginaton. By using a 1/4" filbert and loading it well, I squish the paint down and twist the handle as I lift the brush. this gives the petal some definition and also some variation in the shading of each petal. I try to break up the shapes by punching in some holes with the background color. Most of the petals to the right are in shadow so no lights yet. The vase remains unfinished.

Here, in the final phase, I darkened the leaves in the background to make them sand out against the lighter haze behind the flowers. On top of the darker blooms, I added the lighter highlighted flowers that were catching the light. For some of these, I mixed in a bit of Naples Yellow to make them stand out against the violets. To help the blooms a bit, I put some quinacradone violet into the blooms and punched up the color a bit in a few places.

The color for the stems was just a bit of cad yellow and some of my green mixture from the leaves with a bit of white. When I put the stems in, I paid careful attention to the character of the stems - how they connected with the blooms and where and how they drooped. Often the character of a thing can be best described with nothing more than an edge or a turn of a corner.

The vase was finished up with some highlights. The shadows were enhanced a bit more with some umber. I took some of the violets and purples from the flowers and brushed them into the table to create the illusion of reflection and did the same for the blooms on the table.

Viola! Finished. Elapsed time: 1hr. 45 minutes (and a quick lunch break).

Oil Painting Lesson on Lilies and Rose.

Well, a promise is a promise. Today I brought my egg timer into the studio with me and set it for five minute intervals. Sometimes that worked out and sometimes it was too soon to show much progress, so every now and then I waited a few extra minutes and then took the picture.

OK. First I started with an initial layin. If you've been watching this blog, then you're aware that I start my layins with a burnt umber wash on unstretched canvas. Shadows are really important so I made sure to indicate where they would fall to give me an idea if the value changes would work. With white petals, they're subtle, so I had to be careful of the overall temperature I would allow the background to take.

In order to set the tone, I decided on a cool background so I layed in a quick wash of ultramarine blue toned with some raw umber, white and naples yellow. I then worked in the beginning of the shadow side of the vase. I was careful here to warm the color a bit but use some of the blue from the background.

In the shot above and to the right, I have started to add the shadow color of the cloth as well as some of the lights used in the vase. Note that the lit side is not very bright at this point. As the painting evolves, a conservation of value will take place and I will be better able to judge the value and color relationships. It's easier to go light over dark, than dark over light. If I go too light on the vase, what will I use for it's highlights? I also smoothed the background. Although I like the painterly look of the brush strokes, I feel that they will conflict with the smooth overall look I'm after in this painting and would detract from the main elements.

Here I've put in the shadows of the flowers, keeping the strokes loose. I've also added the lights to the satin cloth (in the photo below left). I used ultramarine blue and alizarin crimsen toned a bit with yellow ochre. For the shadows on the blooms, I used a bit of the background color warmed with umber and naples yellow.

I'm keeping my brush strokes loose here. I'm also using fairly large flats. So far I haven't used a small brush and will resist that until nearly the end.

In the photo to the left, I've added a few strokes of red to the cloth. I've already mixed this color for the grapes and flowers and want to marry the rest of the painting to these colors.

Next I worked in some reds for the grapes. This is a general massing of color. A bit bright and I decide that it needs a bit of darkening. So I add a bit of alizarin crimsen mixed with sap green in the later stages.

We're almost there. I now added the leaves. Using a combination of sap green, cad yellow light and white, I started working in the leaves. I grayed out the ones in the back and pushed them into the background by dragging some of the background color into them.

Now the fun. Using some white, naples yellow and touches of cad yellow light and sap green, I put in the flowers. These went pretty quickly. Lilies are pretty easy to paint. Just a twist or two of the brush and there they are. You can practice these using a 1/2 inch flat. Lay the brush flat for broad strokes and then twist to a thin edge for the ends.

For the details here I moved to a smaller flat. I put in some of the veins on the leaves and the stems on the flowers. You can see a highlight on the vase now and the darker color in the grapes and rose starting to emerge. I've also added the color of the table top. I decided to leave the edge of the table unfinished as this added to the reality of its appearance.

In the final stages, I added some shadows to the "wall" behind the lilies. Some warm highlights to the grapes. They get a bit pink in areas. I also put in some turning edges and brought the darks into play by adding alazarin crimsen mixed with sap green. You can see the rose has emerged here too. Before I moved to the finishing touches on the leaves, I added the highlights to the cloth. Just more of the same color with a bit of naples yellow and white mixture. I kept it loose in pace with the rest of the work.

I put a few dabs of red into the leaves to marry them to the bottom of the painting and tie the whole thing together. Viola! "Rebirth" was born. Total elapsed time: 1.5 hrs.

Le me know if you've gotten anything from this blog. Comments are greatly appreciated. I'm considering adding a video or two to the blog if I can find someone with a camera to do it for me. My Mercury is in retrograde or something as all my computers died in the same month and I'm completely tapped out for this year's technical budget.

I'm still working out the kinks in the blog send subscription. If you'd like to subscribe, just send me an e-mail with your e-mail address by clicking on this link and I'll put you on the send. That way everytime I post, you'll get the lesson complete with photos and links.

"Rebirth", 12" x 17", Oil on canvas panel.

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Painting Lesson on "Le Creuset"

It's been awhile since I posted and I apologize for that. I've had one problem after another with my computers. Well, over $1500 later, I have a new laptop and a new desktop. Guess you can only put off upgrading for so long. Anyway, here I am and I have a short lesson to show for it.

My Walking buddy returned from her snowbirding with a lovely yellow Le Creuset pitcher for me to paint. I love this beauty and couldn't wait to get it on canvas. It's my new favorite and will be the star of many a painting. Anyway, here's the initial layin.

I started as usual with a basic drawing and an umber wash. This time I used burnt umber for the laying. I generally use raw umber because it's a pretty neutral color and doesn't affect colors layed over it. But in this case, I wanted a bit of warmth to infuse the background.

I started with basic shadows on the table and indicated where I would want some shadow shapes in the background. It's important to establish the "color" of your shadows right away because they often help to establish all the other value and color relationships early in the game. Also, if you're wondering what color to use in your background, often a slightly lighter shade of the shadow color can help you get started on a background color that works with the other objects in the work. I'm essentially a realist painter and a romantic one at that. So I like a warm dark background that doesn't compete with my subject. I cool it according to how much light I want in the painting and also according to the color of my subjects. Here, a warm greenish umber worked well with the yellow pitcher, red apples and white flower.

Here, I've laid in the local color of the pitcher and background. I've used some of the background color to pull into the shadows of the pitcher. This puts the pitcher squarely into it's setting - bring air around it and making it a part of its environment.

I got ahead of myself after this point and forgot to take pictures. I promise to bring a timer in with me next time and set it for 3 minutes or so. I paint rather quickly, so I moved into the finishing stages too quickly to be of much help here. I'll need to be verbose to describe what I did next.

I started quickly putting in the table top. I like to establish the colors surrounding the object to help establish color relationships as soon as possible. So I mixed some burnt umber, cad orange, and a touch of yellow ochre. In places I cooled the top with a mixture of cobalt blue and white and scumbled in into the table top. I left the reflections of the objects until after I painted them. I wanted to get the leaves in before I painted the flowers, so I mixed some sap green and a touch of cobalt and then used a dab of umber to darken the leaves. In the back leaves, I again used a bit of the background color mix to help push them back into shadow. The underside of magnolia leaves are reddish ochre in color and that's exactly how I painted them.

Now - onto the flowers. I created a mixture of white, naples yellow and a touch of background color for the shadows and brushed the shadows of the leaves in next.

I kept this mixture loose. I didn't want to tighten up too much on the flowers so I squinted at the whole flower and tried to generalize the overall shape that I saw. Into this grayish/umberish back drop, I painted the petals keeping the miture clean. I used white, naples yellow and touches of yellow ochre to create the lighter petals.

I then went back to the pitcher and put in some highlights and painted some reflections in cooler, lighter variations of the yellow. Then taking just small amounts of this yellow, I dragged my brush downward to create the reflections on the table top. Now on to the apples. These were a bit of a challenge as they were neither red or yellow nor green, but combinations of all of these. I pulled some cad red and some alazarin crimsen together and then toned the mixture with some sap green. This became my local color which I either warmed or cooled according to need. The highlight on the apple all the way to the left was basically pink, so, hell, I painted it that way. Worked fine. The highlight on the apple to the right was greenish white, so that's how I painted it. The meat of the apple was simply naples yellow and a touch of umber for shadow parts and white for the lit parts. I dragged more apple color down for reflections on the table. A tweak here and there, and the painting was done. Next time, I promise more photos.