How to Paint Orchids

"Arc of Orchids"
8" x 10" Oil on Panel

I've been wanting to do Orchids for some time and so I got busy early today and set these up in my shadow box. So here's the set-up.
I used to paint very hard edged reflections when I first started painting still life and have since gone to a softer more romantic look. We'll talk more about that as the lesson progresses.

I'm currently unable to paint by natural light due to the fact that my windows are no longer looking out on the world but on the inside of my new, presently unfinished studio. While there's a beautiful seven foot arched window that faces north in there, none of the light reaches my old studio. When they punch through to the old studio, that room will become my new office and I can set up my still life's under the beautiful soft north light that comes in from the arched window. In the meantime, I'm using a plant light that sort of replicates natural light, but still tends to the warm side. Hence, the rather gold looking tones in the silver bowl.

I started by laying in a basic sketch of the still life with some raw umber and mineral spirits. The yellow ochre background you see is the color of the gesso I used to tone the board. Daniel Smith makes it and I like it because it saves me the trouble of toning a board a few days before I start to work. I don't always know in advance what I'm going to want and also don't have enough spare boards on hand a lot of the time to create diversity.
Working on a toned surface is important because it allows you to better judge values (lights and darks). There I go again talking about values. But they're soooo important.

I did the background first and reserved the shapes of the flowers. Note that in ala prima painting, you try as much as possible to reserve the areas where you are going to place flowers because it's too easy to muddy the colors otherwise.

I used Viridian Green, Raw Umber, and touches of Ultramarine Blue in making the background. I chose the Viridian because it's bluish tint would set off the reds in the flowers without making them too vibrant. The lighter areas were lightened with a touch of Naples Yellow because it's less cool than white. I wanted it a bit lighter where the second bunch of blooms fall because that's where the lightest petals will be and I wanted to lighten the "air" around the flower.

The color of the flowers is mixed with Daniel Smith's Quinacridone Pink. His Quinacridone colors are very intense and don't lose their intensity when you mix them with white. I used a bit of Alazarin Crimson and Ultramarine Blue for the shadow parts and Cadmium Red Light for the center petals.

Note that I use the largest brush that can get the job done. I start with a single stroke - beginning and ending the stroke. I don't go back in and belabor it. That's not to say that I don't use smaller brushes for the detail and places where the petals have highlights on them, but I try to use a loaded brush and get the stroke right on the first try. I'm not always successful. But I'd rather wipe it off and try again, than have an overworked flower.

The pot here is started with Burnt Umber and also some of the background color mixed in. This is important to do in order to give the pot the appearance of being part of its environment. Air, so to speak.

Here I've started to put in some of the background flowers. I'm not working too hard to bring detail into these. You can't see detail from the distance I'm sitting at so why should the viewer have to see it. It's important to keep that in mind. I hear from my students a lot that they "can't see" well enough to get these vague areas. Precisely. That is the point. They are vague.

I'm using Naples Yellow on the pot to bring out the patina. I don't want a hard highlight even though that's what appears before me because of the artificial light. So I lay in the paint and then soften the edges moving out from the center with my brush. You can see a bit of Burnt Umber on the pot here where I've warmed it up to bring it forward in the bulge. I've started the reflection of the cloth, making sure to keep my edges very soft. Inside the pot there's some lovely reflections of the petals but they look a bit orangey to me, so I've tentatively started them that way. They'll likely change as the painting progresses because my eyes will adjust further and color relationships will become clearer to me.

Here the second flower is in and you can see how the bloom is a lot brighter. The picture is a bit on the light side here because I have an Ott Light above it. I've made better adjustments for this in the final picture.

I've put some color into the inside of the pot. A bit of Burnt Sienna and Naples Yellow with Burnt Umber for the darker areas. I've still reserved that orangey spot.

The last of the blooms are in here except for two. Nothing much has changed in the pot at this point except I've darkened a band around the rim.

Sorry for the glare here. It's very hard to see on the camera when I'm taking the shots. The light in the studio is so carefully set with overheads off and separate lights dimmed and directed away from the still life, that it's too dark to just snap a shot. I need to use a longer exposure that tends to pick up more light from other sources than I can see on the lCD display.

I've added the reflections from the blooms on the pot and also brightened the rim of the pot. Nothing much done on the inside yet.

My timer didn't go off so almost 20 minutes elapsed here. The last two flower have been added and I also put in the stems of the flowers. The stems are made up of some of the Viridian Green and a bit of Cadmium Yellow Light.

On the fruit, I started by laying in the core shadow shapes with a darker (OK, I know it doesn't look light) mixture of Viridian and Burnt Umber. You can see this on the apple to the left. The cast shadows were laid in with Burnt Umber on the table portion and a shadow mix of Ivory Black, Cad Yellow Light and White on the table cloth. I brushed in a bit of Yellow Ochre in both shadows to make them more transparent.

The apple color was basically Viridian, Cad Yellow Light with a bit of Cad Red Light to tone the hue. I used the darker mixture of Viridian and Burnt Umber for the turning edges and shadows on the apples slices.
Note the Yellow Ochre in the table cloth. Adding a bit of this or Cadmium Yellow Medium will make a white cloth glow when used sparingly in the shadows where you see light coming through the cloth.

The pot is looking up here. I've rounded the shape a bit and added a highlight to the rim of the pot. I'm starting to see more color in the interior but won't add it until later.

This is the finished painting but it took another hour or so to get here.

The lights on the apple are in. Simple combo of Viridian Green, Cad Yellow Light and some white on the highlight portion. The stem was just some dark Burn Umber.

I've added the reflections of the fruit to the pot and brushed some more color from the flower into the bulge of the pot in the front to bring it forward. Note that the reflections in the pot are vague. I didn't make them sharp edged because to do so in this type of painting only confuses the viewer.

The apple core color is Naples Yellow and a touch of Cadmium Yellow Medium. The pits are just a smidge of Burn Sienna.

For the table top, I used some Burn Sienna, Naples Yellow and touches of white to bring out the area where the light is hitting it. The front of the table is just a darker version of this color with smudges of Burn Umber and background color.
For the handles and foot of the pot, Just some small blobs of Naples Yellow and White mixture on a vaguely painted handle of Raw Umber. Note the shadow of the handle on the left side. This pops the handle and helps to give a dimension of reality. It's these little touches that make all the difference. Thanks for stopping by!

If you'd like to purchase this painting, visit my blog at www.susanmartinspar.blogspot.com and click on the "Buy Now" button. You don't need a PayPal account and can choose to use just your credit card. $99.00 USD plus $15.00 S/H.

How to Paint Pink Roses in Two Hours

My deepest apologies for having taken so long to post to this blog again. I've been touring the Mediterranean and before that summer had me in high gear for the festival season. But winter is here again - nearly, and so I'm back to my routine of publishing regularly.

I thought I'd start off with a small painting I did today for Daily Painters. I thought that after a month or so away, it would be really hard to get into the studio, but I found myself getting excited about squeezing out paint as I moved around getting a small set up ready. The construction guys are working on my new studio so it was comforting to push paint around while I listened to the steady drum of hammering on my new roof.

I know that I promised I'd talk about my workshop with David Leffel but I've decided that I'd talk about what I learned as I integrate it into lessons. That way it sticks for me and makes better sense for you. So, let's begin.

Here's the set up.

Sorry that this photo's a bit on the blurry side. Before I left on vacation, I put everything away in anticipation of the construction crew breaking through to the old studio. So much as for construction schedules. I had some trouble locating the tripod. Don't worry - it gets better. Just a reminder to new folks just tuning in for the first time. These shots of the set up are just for your information. I NEVER use photos to paint from in still life. Photos distort and generally mask color and light in disproportionate ways. Shadows are always too dark and lack color and the highlights are always washed out. Texture all but disappears. I always work from life when I can, and I encourage and teach all my students to do the same.

I kept the setup simple here because I needed to ease back into the painting process after a month away. In the next photo, you can see how I blocked in the basic shapes. I sort of drew the composition in with raw umber and then filled in the shadow areas with umber to get an idea of the composition and how I wanted to fill the space.

After I did this little sketch, I decided that the whole thing needed to be moved down a bit and when I started to fill in the background, I did so. I used a combination of Thalo Blue, Ivory Black and Raw Umber to work in the darker areas of the background. The same combo with more white and Naples Yellow was used for the lighter area.

You can see that I haven't yet moved things down here, but it becomes evident in the next photo.

David Leffel prefers filbert bristles and that's a big change for me. I have traditionally preferred to use sables and still do for the smoothing of a background. But here you can see that I am using a palette knife which is another of David's favorite tools. I am quite enjoying the mastering of this tool and find that it works very well for helping me to attain the texture I desire on my vases.

To turn the vase, I used more of the background color with a bit of Ultramarine Blue. I darkened it a bit more with Ivory Black and used it along the core shadow. This added some drama to an otherwise ho hum set up. For the vase itself, I used white, some of the Thalo Blue and a big of Naples yellow. I didn't mixed the color evenly but just jostled it a bit with my brush to give a more interesting mixture. Then after using a brush in a cross wise (across the form) motion, I then turned to the palette knife to bring in texture. Notice the reflected light on the shadow side. Just a slightly lighter mixture.

I find students get all tied up over what "color" to make the reflected light. I'm a bit like David here in that I use color on colorlessness as my MO. That means that I don't dither too much over the dead areas but keep them simple. You can choose to add some color in the reflected light areas but they should be kept generally cool in temperature. Shadows should be warm. I laughed at the workshop when I heard David say to a student, "cool light, warm shadows; warm light....uh...warm shadows." Shadows just look a lot better when they are warm. If you are using blue in your shadows, use a warm blue - one that has red in it to warm it. Here on the cloth, I used some of the background color neutralized with raw umber to warm it a bit. I felt OK using that blueish tone because there was so much of it in the background and vase already that it made sense to use it in the shadows.

For the cloth, I used a touch of the background color with Ivory Black, a tiny bit -TINY - of Cadmium Yellow and a touch of white for the shadows areas. Some warmth was added in areas with some Yellow Ochre ans white. The light areas of the cloth were done with white and Naples Yellow. I used a palette knife in places to build up the highlights.

For the table top I used a bit of Burnt Umber, white and Cadmium Yellow Light for the top and for the sides, just Burnt Umber. I kept the brush work loose and strove to keep it light. Next, on to the roses.

I like to use quinacradone colors for my pink or red flowers because the color is very intense and doesn't get washed out with white as do the Cadmium reds. I used Daniel Smith Quinacradone Pink for the base color of the roses and then I added mixture of Cadmium Orange and Cadmium Yellow Deep to it to bring out the coral color in the roses.

While it looks like there's a lot going on in these flowers, their construction was really quite simple. I used a medium size filbert and brushed in the center color. A couple of strokes was all it took to make the petals. Where I wanted a petal to turn or an edge to come forward, I piled on the paint, made the edge sharper and sculpted the paint. I use Maroger Medium for this as it allows me to retain brush strokes and build the paint up. I grayed out the pink with an addition of background color (it looks more blue here than green due to the thalo, but in reality it has more of a green cast which neutralizes the pink in the flowers and makes for a good shadow.

In the last photo and the finished painting below, you can see the leaves were worked in last. I used Thalo Blue and Cadmium Yellow Light with touches of Naples Yellow here and there. For the darkest parts of the leaves, I mixed the color with a touch of Ivory Black to strengthen the darks and shadows. Let me emphasize the fact that when I use Ivory Black, these are just little dabs of this neutral. Ivory Black has a lot of blue in it and can actually be used in some paintings as blue if properly painted alongside colors of more neutral or warm tint. Try making a lovely green by adding some Cadmium Yellow to Ivory Black. You couldn't do that if it didn't have blue in it. You just don't want to overdue the black or use it by itself for shadows. It would deaden the space. Shadows should have some color or light breathed into them. That's why I use Cadmium Yellow in my shadows. The last thing I did here was to add more Naples Yellow to the background to liven it up and some pure Quinacradone Pink and Alazarin Crimson in the center of the flowers. A quick little warm up to get back into the flow of paint. Any questions, just post them here and I'll answer them for you so everyone gets to see the answers. Thanks for tuning in!

Addendum

Oops! I hit the "enter" key and published before I was ready. Well, I'm almost ready.

I'm working on three things this week: shadow strength, stroke direction and quality, and brush work. All stuff I should know, but need to be strongly reminded of. I'll give you all the details as the weeks progress. But suffice it to say, I'm putting tape around all my brushes to remind me not to let my hand slip below the tape. Seems a good idea. I generally hold my brushes at the ends but forget a lot during the initial layin. David says it's important to start finishing a painting from the first stroke. Now that's something to think about.

More later. I need a shower and some sleep.

Day Three David Leffel Workshop

I'm pooped. I've been painting since 9:00 am this morning and my brain feels like mush. I'm definitely in workshop curve curse. I forgot how to paint fruit. Fruit!!! I totally forgot how. David said I've been going "down hill" all day. Certainly feels like it. At least it's not a surprise and it means that I'm trying to unlearn old habits and learn new ones. Of course I forgot how to paint fruit - he does it so differently than I do!

Day One of David Leffel Workshop

Aaaagh! I forgot to bring the gizmo for my camera that downloads the photos!!! But take heart...I'm taking tons of photos and lots of notes. I promise you all I'll start posting the workshop stuff as soon as I can following my return on Friday.

All my fears are put to rest. David Leffel is an incredible, humble, beautiful human being and an incredible teacher. We spent the first half of the day in a demonstration and the second half setting up and starting our own still life's. It's very exciting! There are about 20 students in the workshop and everyone is very intense about the work. Everyone is on a different level but it doesn't seem to matter - David meets everyone on the level they are working on.

Just as I feared, I'm in workshop mode. But David said that my set up was great and the painting is coming along great so I shouldn't worry. However, I'm attempting to do the entire panting in hog bristles which is a huge change for me. I generally lay in the painting with bristles and then switch to sables for the rest of the work. I feel like I've spent the day fighting the brushes. But so far I'm resisting the temptation to switch to my regulars. The palette is also a bit more limited than the one I generally use but so far that doesn't seem to be too much of a problem.

I'm pretty beat tonight and I'm going to hop in the shower and then snuggle into a comfortable bed for some reading. I'll check in with you all in a day or so.

Learning with David Leffel

I've been rather busy the last couple of months and things aren't going to settle down anytime soon. My studio is undergoing re-construction this month and I'm taking a David Leffel workshop in Fall City starting this monday through Friday. I'm very excited. If you don't know who David Leffel is, I suggest you Google him. He's considered a living Master and his work has influenced every stroke of paint I've made in the past two years. He, above all, is considered one of the great teachers of our time. Here's a comment on someone's blog about him.

I consider it a great privilege to take a workshop with this painter and at the same time I'm terrified. I understand completely what my students feel when I approach their easels during a class. On one hand you are so hoping to get a kudo from the teacher, terrified they won't say anything (what's wrong with it????Is it that awful??? What am I paying you for?) and at the same time worried that they will. What I have resigned myself to being in "workshop curve". I seem to forget everything I've ever known and everything I've ever studied, my hands become absolute paddles, my brain gets addled and I totally do a brain freeze on mixing color. What is that anyway? Sigh. But I'm still excited to meet the Master. I'll be trying to post a few things to this blog during the week, but forgive me if it doesn't happen. I promise to share everything and anything I learn with you all. Many thanks to Rosa for calling me about this workshop. I didn't think at the time that I would be able to do it. My husband convinced me otherwise. What a gift.

How to paint an Asian Jar with Flowers

Well, it's been awhile and I apologize for that. I haven't been publishing as much due to the need to take care of other business. The good news is I'm getting ready to enlarge my studio, the bad news is, that project along with all the others this summer is keeping me out of the studio.

But I've been busy nonetheless. I've worked out a link system to my website that will allow me to do the actual blogging a bit easier. Blogger's set up makes it difficult to upload multiple images and still keep things compact and simple. It often takes me three or more hours to do a simple lesson on blogger. I'm hoping with the addition of a "Student's Atelier" pages to my website, I will be able to keep things organized.Essentially, nothing changes for you as this blog continues to be the launch point for all lessons. So to begin, click here. If the link fails to work for some reason, just paste the following into your browser and away you go.

http://susanspar.com/Oil%20paint%20lessons.htm.

How to paint an Asian Tea Pot and Peaches

I recently spent a weekend in Victoria visiting with some friends. An afternoon jaunt to China Town netted me this lovely Tea Pot. I fell in love with the dragon. With summer nearly here and other demands calling for my attention, I thought I'd spend the entire day on this painting and see what the investment in time on a single sitting could yeild.

Here's the set up. I ended up changing a few things once I began the layin.

I love to paint lace and it's always a challenge to make it come out right. I nearly always have to remind myself to take my time on it. I'm always glad when I do.


I started the painting with a basic monochromatic underpainting using some acrylic black and white. I wanted to get a feel for the light in this piece and a good value study is always helpful. You can see that I kept things pretty loose and used a relatively large brush. I avoided details and just kind of played
with how I wanted the brush strokes to go. That's one of the cool things about working with acrylic at this stage. You get to see how things will play out. The lighting for the background was a bit tricky. I wanted it to be atmospheric and not too dark. But I didn't want it chalky either. I knew the transitions would be important.

In the next picture you can see that I've laid in a background mixed from burnt umber, cad yellow and a touch of naples yellow for the lighter hue. I've blended that with a darker mix that has a bit of ultramarine blue and no naples yellow in it.

I smoothed out the brush strokes with a very soft black sable Performen brush. I love these brushes. They have a multitude of uses and cost relatively little compared to other sables. ASWexpress.com carries them.

Here you can see that I started with the base color of the tea pot. I've used titanium white, naples yellow, some background color and a touch of ultramarine blue. This is mixed in three shades from light to dark. I'm very careful to conserve the lightest light which will be used later for highlights on the pot.

A good thing to do when you are painting a light colored piece (or any color for that matter) is to squint down and compare the value of the object right next to the highlight. You'll be surprised at just how dark by comparison it really is.

Remember to keep your shadows thin and the lights thick. There's actually a good amount of paint on the lighter areas.

Now the peaches. First I mixed the shadow color using a bit of alazarin crimsen and sap green. I pushed this into the shadows of the fruit. Next I mixed a light mixture of cad yellow deep, cad light, background green and naples yellow - keeping the mixture light and not trying to over mix it. Stir it together on your palette like you are making muffins. Too much mixing and the muffins go flat.

Things are not too defined here and I'm keeping my edges soft. I'm looking for value changes and just trying to make sure that things stay where they are supposed to. There's actually three peaches on the right. One in front of the other and I'm struggling here to get one pushed back and the other brought forward.

A note about edges. Edges are like the marks on a music sheet telling the musician when to go slow and when to go fast. You edges are supposed to act as guides to the viewer, signaling them as to the pace of the painting. Your job is to conduct the symphony and lead the viewer where you want them to go. But it's best to leave all your edges soft until you get to near the end stages. Then you can adjust edges with a little more authority.

Notice the spout and how it appears to be covered with background color. That's because it is. When I lay in a color or area behind an object, I don't paint to the edge. This creates a edge that is too crisp making objects appear cut out or pasted on. The trick is to "paint through" the object. You can come back in later and paint back into the area appropriately. I've added it finally and put a light passage near the top in the next photo.

I've also laid in a basic color for the grapes. I started with alazarin crimsen and black but changed that to cadmium red and black. Worked better.

Here comes the lace. I thought a lot about what I was doing here so that I could explain it to you as I go along.

Basically, when you paint lace - and this goes for almost any medium, you paint the holes first. After laying in the cloth with a similar mixture to that of the tea pot, I took a bit of raw umber and background mixture and then took a soft brush and kind of stippled in the designs of the lace where the holes were. Don't worry too much about getting all the detail. If you get started with a basic pattern, just repeat it with a few variations making sure to follow the folds of the cloth. Pay attention to the lights and darks (overall values) on the cloth. You don't want to go light where you should go darker.

Oops! You can see I messed up got some paint where I didn't want it - namely on the peach. No worry - everything is fixable.

In order to brighten some of the pattern and make it stand out more, I mixed some of my light mixture with white and naples yellow and thickened it with Maroger. Then using a small brush I picked up bits of the paint and laid it on the areas where I wanted the pattern to stand out. NOT EVERYWHERE! Sorry. I sometimes get excited with my personal students too. Good thing they like me. Here's a close up before I put in the brights.


A note here about brush strokes. David Leffel (my hero), says that you should not be able to hear the stroke of the brush on the canvas. If you can you either don't have enough paint on the brush or you don't have enough medium on it. You should practice getting just the stroke you want with a loaded brush. A deliberate stroke that is not correct will look 100 times better than a correct passage that is overworked. This takes practice. Lots of it. So get your paints out and start painting a piece of fruit a day. By the end of the year, you'll either be fat as a cow from eating your leftovers or you'll be a genius at laying in paint. Or maybe both, but it will be worth it.

Ok. Here you can see the lights a bit better. Now that lace is starting to come to life. Now it's time to fix those poor peaches.


Placement is important here so I push the one in the back further against the background and reduce it's size a bit with background color and some adjustments to the cloth. This peach is furthest back and so it needs a soft edge where it meets the background color. I dragged some of the green down into it and soften the edge with my brush. The edge against the pot is a bit harder. I want a little air there between the peach and the pot. The colors are mixed with cad red light, cad yellow deep and cad yellow light. Not all mixed together, mind you, but in subtle ways to bring the color of the peach out. To turn the edge, I've used some of the back ground color and alazarin crimsen where the light turns to the shadow side.

The second peach also needs to be back a bit but not as far back as the formost peach. I've added a bit of green to the mixture. The peach fuz on the top is a mixture of cobalt blue and a bit of white. I've kept it's top edge soft and the left edge a bit sharper.

The peach in the foreground is lower on the surface of the lace. This brings it forward. It's edges are a bit sharper as well. But the shadow side is soft. Note the core shadow on the foremost peach. It turns the fruit.

I've added color to the grapes. A bit of blue (cobalt & white) for some reflection and a bit of cad yellow and rose for the areas of the grape where light shines through. The highlights are thick and I've run the end of my brush through them to add texture.

The handles have been ignored until now so it's time to give them a little attention. This is a simple mixture of yellow ochre. I've laid them in here with a bright brush to keep the square look I'm after.

Next I lightened the mixture a bit and laid it into the areas where the light is hitting. Notice how everything is still fairly rough.

Lastly, I take a bit of umber softened with background green and make tiny little lines to indicate the weave pattern on the handles.

Here you can also see that I've started to lay in the design of the dragon. I mixed a glaze of ultramarine blue with a touch of alazarin crimsen to darken it and then started to work out the design of the dragon.

I'm really grateful for those life drawing groups I go to every Tuesday. All that sketching has paid off and allowed me to get the dragon in fairly accurately without a lot of fuss. If you are trying something like this, I would suggest that you first let the white paint dry. If it's dry, you can make all the mistakes you want because you can just wipe out the glaze and start over. Here my paint was still wet so not only could I not afford a mistake, I needed to lay the glaze on with short light strokes so as not to disturb the wet paint underneath.

After the dragon was finished, I put the design along the top edge of the pot in. I changed it from the design on the original pot to something simpler (my back was killing me).

From this point on, I adjusted edges, checked measurements and put in the leaves behind the fruit. Oh, yeah...notice the highlight in the final photo. See how light it looks against what you thought was a really light pot?

Phew. An all day painting session, but it paid off. What do you think?

Oh. Just a note here...I appreciate your comments on the blog but I'd like you all to feel free to start a dialogue where you can learn from one another too. Feel free to post and ask questions of each other.

"The Dragon Pot"

12" x 14", Oil on Canvas Panel

Click here to bid

How to paint roses, Rose Oil Painting, 12" x 16" on Linen Panel

For a lot of people, the life of an artist seems like a romantic and dreamy existence. Well...it is, a lot of the time. But a lot of the time, it's just a huge amount of hard work and a pretty isolated existence. Every now and then, the routine of getting up early and going into the studio to paint or the office to work, or the gallery to handle business details, picking up supplies, dropping off at the post office, etc., etc., etc., gets to me. This weekend was like that so I took a few days off just to hang around, eat Weight Watcher snacks, read, play racquetball and ride my bike. Today, rested and refreshed, I went back to work.





The light in the studio was pretty bright but also pretty inspiring. I felt like white roses to go with the coolness of the setting. Here's the set up.





I always try to start my paintings with a concept. This is a thought that I have about what I'd like to achieve. It's not necessarily a picture in my mind, but more like an idea. The purpose of a concept is to provide a road map to the painting. If you hold your concept in mind throughout the process, it will keep you on track. It will also tell you when your painting is done. Once you have fulfilled your concept, then that's it. You're done. My concept for this piece was for overhead light which would pool over the top of the subject causing the objects below to be top lit. Instead of a transparent background, I wanted to have a very dark background to set off the roses.




I started the painting with a burnt sienna tone which I laid in the night before with a drop or two of Liquin to help it set up in time for the morning session. This morning, I did a quick outline of the subject in raw umber. Sorry for the poor photo - I held the camera here so things got a bit blurry. The rest of them are better.

I laid in the background - 2nd picture, with some umber mixed with thalo green and alizarin crimson. I left it loose around the flowers as I wanted some of the background sienna to show through around the roses.



I was using an ott light here on the painting as well as on the set up which, unfortunately, puts a bit of glare on the painting. I would turn this off from time to time to get a better reading on my values. The fact that I work in natural light most days, can create problems as I try to eliminate extraneous light sources and this can lead to a pretty dark room.

As I don't have overhead skylights in the studio, I needed a cool light source over my set up. So I set up one of my other Ott Lights over the set up. Because this does not exactly work the same as natural light on the subject, I had to turn this off from time to time to get a better idea of what some of the objects look light in dimmer light.

Next, using some burnt umber with a touch of cad orange, I laid in a quick color for the table top. This is just a base color as I intended to add reflections and highlights later.

The shadow color for the object - basically a burnt umber had been laid in at the initial start. It's important to get your shadow colors in first. They provide the bones of the painting and you don't want to be changing them later in the game. That is a recipe for disaster.

Using a mixture of naples yellow and white, with background color for shadow, I laid in the vase.

I use a medium called Maroger which helps to retain brush strokes. I sometimes let this sit on my palette in the freezer so that it's a bit more set up the next day. when I add this to the paint, it creates a stiffer mixture allowing me to sculpt the paint. The paint is thickest where the light is brightest and just before the turning edges of the vase. It's difficult to see in the photo here, but you can see it in the close-ups and in the final shots where I turned out the lights to take the picture.


In the picture to the left, I've started to put in the shadows for the roses. I used, again, part of the background color mixed with naples yellow/white mixture. A bit of violet was added in places.

The strokes laid in here are simple straight slashes made with a 1/2" and 1/4" bright. I'm trying to maintain the character of the roses. I try looking at them peripherally rather than straight on. This allows me to get the impression of the rose and its character rather than having to belabor the individual petals. My goal as a painter is to learn to say more with less. Quite a challenge for a former trompe l'oeil painter.



Here you can see that I've started to put in the lights. These were mixed with naples yellow and white - two mixtures. One light and one darkened with a bit of umber. Notice how light the mixtures look. On my palette they looked quite dark but when laid in next to the shadows the contrast in temperatures made them appear very bright. This is the same for the vase which appears quite lit but in reality is composed of darker value mixtures. I used some raw sienna in the lights for the warm centers of the roses.


You can see here the built up lights I was referring to above.











I'm finishing off the flowers here. Check out the pictures below to get a better idea of the details. They look a bit washed out by the overhead light here.























Using mixtures of thalo green, cad yellow and cad red to warm the mixture. I cooled areas of the leaves with naples yellow and white mixed in with the green mixture.

I then created a mixture of ultramarine blue tempered with some burnt umber and some Maroger to create a glaze. I worked this in the vase to recreate the design. Remember that a design can help to describe the form. I also lengthened the vase which I noticed was too short. This necessitated redrawing some of the fruit to drop it lower on the table.

The shadows of the fruit were laid in using some cad yellow, ivory black and cad orange. I used a cool yellow, zinc, to be precise, mixed with white for the sliced lemon. Warm tones were cad yellow medium and cad orange.








I took some of the cad colors and pulled the down into the table top to create reflections.

The lights for the lemons were done with cad yellow medium, and zinc yellow mixed with white. I left the lemon on the left in shadow.

Putting in the leaves on the right topped off the elements.

To finish off, I used a bit of quinacradone sienna on the table to create contrast. I further pulled down some of the lights in the vase and used a bit of ultramarine blue and white to create reflected light.

After a few tweaks here and there, I declared the painting done and put my name proudly on the bottom.

You can see the roses much better here because I turned out the lights for the picture. I'll try to remember to do this again in the future for the other pictures.

Phew. It sure takes a long time to write this stuff out. Hope you all got something from it.

I'd like to emphasize here how important it is to me that you leave a comment or two on the blog. For one, I'm happy to answer questions so that everyone can learn from them and, second, by posing questions or statements, you invite dialogue from others. This makes the blog more interesting and helps me to know what kinds of things you'd like me to focus on.

That's all. See you all in a couple of weeks.

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Seems blogger prempted my entry for today and published before it was finished. The entire lesson is now on line. Check it out.

How to paint Magnolias and Brass in Oils

My apologies for not having published here for the past two weeks. Sometimes the necessities of making a living can really keep me busy - or too tired to do anything. I actually started to prepare for a session a couple of times and found myself 1/2 way through a painting before I remembered to take a picture! Well...here I am and I have a good session for you.

Here's the set up. I recently swept into an antique shop and found this beautiful brass pitcher. I'm a sucker for brass and copper. They're both such fun to paint! The set up doesn't look very impressive here but the light in the studio was just perfect when I started to paint. Besides, the rest comes from artistic license and vision. My concept was for the light to pool a the round base of the pitcher and around the first flower. I wanted the rest of the fruit to gradually catch the light and then fade into shadow.

I've recently started working on linen for my larger pieces. I love the stuff. It's a medium grade oil primed linen that comes in a large roll. I ordered it from Art Supply Wharehouse.

I usually paint on boards which I prime myself with gesso or face with canvas. In order to prepare this board, I cut out the linen, primed the board to seal it and then using Golden's Medium Gell, I adhered it to the board and burnished it down with a brayer. A quick imprimatura of burnt umber and cad red and I was ready to paint. I laid in the drawing with raw umber, keeping everything simple. Then I mixed my background color - raw umber, cad yellow and a touch of cobalt blue. The lighter area is mixed with a bit more of naples yellow to lighten it. Next, I brushed in shadows on the table top.

Oops! I got carried away here and totally forgot to take a picture. This easily happens to me and I wised up after this and started setting my timer to remind me to stop and take a picture. The pitcher came together rather quickly. I mixed together some of the background color and some raw sienna. Another mixture a bit lighter with yellow ochre and a third mixture of yellow ochre and cad yellow. I have touches of cad yellow medium which is a sort of orangy yellow also. The highlights were built of cad yellow and white. At this point, the pitcher is in but not completed. I'll save the finishing tuches for later. Oh...black was used in sections around the edges to lose edges against the background and for depth. The black was tempered with umber.

A couple of more tweaks done here to the handle. Highlights with with more of the cad yellow mixture were laid in to the scrolling work.

I also lifted out some of the color where the flowers would be. That's one of the things I found strange about linen - how easily wet paint can lift from it.

I had to keep turning the easel around to take it out of the glare of the window, so I apologize for the strange angle of the canvas in these shots. Here I've laid in the shadow color of the lemons. I used some background color modified with cad yellow medium and cad orange to create the warm shadow color. The tough thing to remember about painting shadow color is that the thing to do is not necessarily try to match the color of the shadow, but the relationship of the color to the list side as well as the other colors around it. That's a trickey thing to do right. Once you understand this, however, you will understand that paint is not light or the object you are trying to represent. It has it's own qualities and laws. Understanding them is crucial to getting your objects to come to life.

Next I made a mixture from cobalt blue, cad orange and naples yellow for the shadow color of the blossoms. I also mixed in a bit of cad yellow for areas where light was shining through the petals. I laid this in carefully wherever there were petals that were showing in shadow.

A mixture of naples yellow and white made up my petals. I also made up a separate mixture a bit lighter for brighter highlights. I laid the petals in carefully - taking my time here to keep each petal separate. It's allright to let the bottom levels blurr into each other. This creates a soft admosphere. But on the upper petals, if you want the flower to be recognizeable, you need to keep each petal distinct from it's neighbor. Don't belabor the petals. Paint them with a large brush and pay attention to their character. Load your brush with generous paint. The underblooms should be painted thinly while the uper ones should have body.

Once the blossoms were in, I laid in the center of the flowers with touches of burnt umber and cad orange. The pollen laden stamen were just tiny bits of naples yellow.

Here's a closeup of one of the blooms with it's colors and all its nuances.

The lemons were next. Using cad yellow light and cad medium, I laid in the lemons. I watched out here for the warm reflected light in the shadows. It's lovely ahd can really help to set off the cool yellow.

I wasn't happy here with the strokes on the lemon. I soon found that if the paint wasn't laid in thickly, I'd be picking up paint already laid in. I intend to go over these tomorrow to correct stroke direction and refine the cast shadows a bit.

The last step was to put in the reflections on the table top and to lay in a few leaves and stems. Colors already on the palette were used here and nothing special in the way of mixtures was used. Tomorrow I may rework the lemons a bit but for now the piece is finished and on EBay.

Feel free to leave comments on this blog. I welcome questions and will try to answer them as best as I can.