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.

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

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