How to paint Orchids and Tapestry

Ok, Ok, I know it's been a long time since I published. But, hey, I've been studying at an atelier in Seattle twice a week and teaching all day on Wednesdays. That leaves me four days in order to be a wife, clean my house, paint two days and do homework on the fourth. I'm out of breath just thinking about it. But I'm making up for it - I've got a nice long lesson for you.

In fact, it's so long, I've opted to put it on my website so that I could organize it better for you and make it go faster for myself. It still took me three hours to put it all together, so cut me some slack. The painting took about four weeks. Here's the finished piece, now just click here for the lesson. If for any reason the link doesn't work, go to www.susanspar.com, click on the link for "Student's Atelier" and then on the link for "Oil Painting Lessons and Still Life" and then on the link for "Lesson IV: Balance. Orchids and Tapestry". See you at the web page!

How to Paint a Magnolia Spray

Summers are always a very busy time for artists. It's when things really come alive in the art community. Art fairs start happening, galleries are all a buzz, art walks get under way and studios open their doors for tours. And that's exactly what I've been up to. Since I started attending atelier with Tenaya Sims six months ago, I've barely had time to paint let alone put together a lesson. And then when summer came along, well, the first paragraph says it all.

Thanks to Facebook, I've recently been connecting with old friends and one of my teenage buddies just commissioned a small painting from me. So I thought that I might as well kick off a lesson while I painted. This time I remembered to set my timer so I could take photos at regular intervals.

OK - here's the set up. My friend just wanted a spray of Magnolias without the attendant vase. Schucks! I really love painting vases, but alas, it was not to be. So the vase in the lower left hand corner will not be included in the painting. For the sake of expediency, I'll not be capitalizing the names of the paints. Now remember, the photo is for the sake of this blog. I NEVER PAINT FROM PHOTOS FOR FLOWERS! I emphasize this because it's something I'm adamant about. In fact, I almost never use photos except for the occasional landscape and then only because my bad and aching back doesn't allow for a lot of plein air junkets anymore.

I started with a sketch of the spray on a gessoed panel and then fixed it with spray fixative. Krylon spray will do for this. I followed up with a tone of raw umber - my preferred tone for floral underpaintings. Then I lifted out the lights trying to pay attention to where the shadows fell. I didn't worry too much about the stems as I paint them in last and can find them by just looking at the setup.Next I laid in a background of raw umber mixed with some cadmium yellow light, naples yellow and a tad of titanium white.

As always, I started laying in the shadow shapes keeping everything soft and not too sharp. The shadows were at this point a simple mix of ivory black, cadmium yellow and white - maybe a touch of ultramarine blue. The blue is sometimes a nice touch but not always necessary as ivory black is actually quite blue in tone. As a matter of fact, many of the masters used it before lapis blue became widely available. It's a credit to them that they managed, through a solid understanding of color theory, to make it look so blue.

The reddish tones were added by the judicious use of a little Pouzzouli Red (more about this color later). The yellow tones by the addition of a mixture of yellow ochre and white.

Of course the lights came next. Cool offsets warm and vice versa. I also used some of the background color to tie in the flowers with their background so they looked airy and not pasted on. Relative to the lights, the shadows are slightly cool. Thus the use of naples yellow and titanium white to make a warm white mixture is the trick here in making the lights pop. But here's another interesting and conflicting point - just to confuse you. Had I mixed a very small amount of ultramarine blue in with the white instead, it would have worked well also. That's because the cadmium in the shadows would have played off against the cool blue. Still, I like the way naples yellow brightens whites and I save a cool white for when I really want to throw a zinger in.

At this point I wasn't laying the paint on too thick. I wanted to keep my edges soft and add the globs of paint that would give sharper edges to the blooms after I decided where they were necessary. Things look relatively flat at this point, but hold on to your paint brushes. Things will start to improve shortly.

Here I've started to paint in the smaller flowers and buds. You can see that I've also started to add some thicker paint. Notice that I do this on the petals that are coming forward in the flowers. In order to push the ones in the back ground back, you paint those petals flatter and thinner. Thick accents thin just as warm accents cool.

Here's a closeup of the flowers.

Now on to the leaves. I generally don't carry a green on my palette but for for magnolias it's helpful to use a little thalo green. Now this is a very cool green because of a blue tint. Thalo is also a chemical color - not a natural pigment color. As a result, it has a very strong tinting strength and should never be used straight from the tube or in large amounts. I toned the thalo green with alizarin crimson which darkened it without warming it too much. Alazarin has blue in it and is a cool red. The use of cadmium red would have made the mixture too brownish (green/blue and red/orange cancel each other out). This cool mixture helped immensely when I got to the back side of some of the leaves which were a warm orangey color. Again, the play of cool against warm makes these leaves stand out.

The highlights or lighter passages on the blue/green leaves were done with a lightened background mixture.

For the orangey/brownish or golden leaves, I used a mixture of yellow ochre and touches of either naples hellow for the lighter parts or burnt umber for the darker shadows. As always, I laid in the shadows first!

Here's a closeup of the leaves.

Lastly, before I put in the stems, I punched things up a bit. The central flower was lacking color, so I warmed up the blossom by laying in touches of warm reddish tones. The color I uses is Pozzuoli Red from Rublev. It's a natural pigment but very close to burnt sienna, except it's opaque rather than transparent as is burnt sienna. However, burnt sienna should work equally as well. A bit more yellow ochre in a few places and some pinkish tones from a mixture of cadmium red light and white, and the color was right.

But I still wasn't finished. At this point, I sharpened some of the edges, deepened some of the shadows and thickened some of the lights. Then I added the center of the bloom with stamen.

The finishing touches came with the stems. These were executed with mixtures of alizarin crimson and Pouzzouli Red for the darks and touches of the leaf mixtures for highlights and some additional darks.

Here's the final piece. Hope you like it....hope my friend likes it.

"Magnolia Spray", 11" x 14", Oil on Panel

Oil Painting Lesson for Peonies and Asian Vase

Here's a close up of the leaves and table flowers. It's not that noticeable in the photo but I've been enhancing some of the blooms by deepening color and scumbling lites in a a few places. Tips of the petals have more color in them and I've added this in a few places. Often things that are not at first noticeable to you, become more so as time goes by. These less obvious statements can be brought out in later passes.

There's a bit of reflected pink on the side of the vase where the flowers rest against it. I've added that as well. Notice there are no shadows yet on the table top. Generally these are added even before I start a painting, but I opted to use a glazing method to put them in afterwards. I wanted to develop the leaves a bit more before I do that.

So here I've started to add some of the stems and more leaves. In order to differentiate the ones in front from the leaves in back, I've lighted some of the edges on the leaves. I'll refine these even further in the last session.

Notice the cast shadows from the leaves on the table cloth.

I felt that the peony on the left side was a bit too lit up and it was stealing the show from the larger one which is the main focal point of the painting. Even though I loved the way that other peony looked, it's never a good idea to sacrifice an entire painting for the purpose of preserving a single passage. So I mixed a glaze of the Quinacridone Pink with some green and started to knock it down a bit.
Now that the pant is dry on the other flowers, I'm free to add some modeling to some of the petals by adding more lights and darks. The lights are added with mixtures of titanium white which has high tinting strength and small amounts of Naples Yellow or the Quinacridone Pink - depending on what I'm after. If I add a white/yellow mixture, the petal will round outward. If I add a the pink, it will tend to retreat a bit. Not as much as if I cooled the mixture with green, but just enough to turn the petal away from me.

I've also done some more darkening on the apple on the left. The stems and leaves are easier to view here.

Oops. Camera is a bit tilted here. But I think you can get an idea. I've mixed some Ultramarine Blue with some umber to tone it down. A glaze mixture with the use of Maroger Medium was combined and then using a soft sable, I started to lay in the lines for the blue design on the vase. I'm careful here to maintain the structure of the vase which is not quite round, but slightly squared off. The design helps to describe the form.

The paint under the glaze is completely dry so that it's safe to put the glaze on, and if I make a mistake, wipe it out with a brush that has been wet with thinner.
I took the time here to work some more on the petals of the flower resting on the table. I've darkened some of the leaves and created stronger cast shadows from them on the table cloth.

Here I've added more details. The design the top of the vase is done by making a mixture of shadow white with a touch of ultramarine blue. Remember this part of the design is in the shadow.

I've also refined the shape and thickness of the blue lines and darkened the shadow under the vase and some of the other objects on the table.

Viola! Finito la comedia. Or, in other words, done! Much nicer when you get to view the whole piece in one shot.

The final design is in. I've heightened the lights on the vase in a couple of places by scumbling in some lighter mixture here and there. The table top is a bit more lit up where the apples are. I'm also finally happy with the peony that is drooping off to the left. It no longer steals the show and tucks back nicely with some atmosphere around it. I've darkened the table cloth toward the bottom of the picture as well.

Well, the painting is done, signed and for the most part, both the client and myself are happy with it. Hope you like it too. Thanks for stopping by. Remember, in order to see the whole lesson in one easy read, check out the lesson on my website by clicking here.

"Full Bloom"
18" x 24", Oil on Canvas

How to Paint Peonies, Day Four

Today proved to be a trying one. I had contractors, engineers and inspectors banging all over the house and the constant interruptions had me banging my head against the wall and sniffing paint fumes in a vain attempt to escape it all.

But in spite of all the craziness, I did manage to get a few things accomplished. I had the curtain on the French door behind me open and so had a bit of cool light to paint by. Hence the bluish tint on the left side o the canvas. That shouldn't prove to be too much of a difficulty here as I'm illustrating the last of the flowers in this picture.

I re-entered the painting by first giving a slight blue glaze to the background to cool down some of the yellow tint in the umber background. I'm still not sure of the tapestry look and may decide before painting in the leaves to just make the background solid. It feels a bit distracting to me.
After glazing the background, I finished off the last three flowers. These are still not quite done at this point and I'll get back to them before the close of the session. It's difficult to work out all the values on the flowers until their surroundings are painted in.

Time for the apples. I started with their shadows by mixing in a bit of burnt umber and a touch of yellow ochre for reflected light. Then I was on to the shadows of the apples. I started with raw umber and some Cadmium Yellow Light mixed in. This was further toned with a little Cad Red Light. I mixed this lightly with some toned down Thalo Green for the more colorful spots on the apples. A touch of Yellow Ochre and white for the reflected light becomes evident in the next photo.

Note that an object's truest color will be on the turning edge just as the light on the object turns to shadow. The core shadow follows this. It's easiest to remember this by just noting that light washes out color and shadow obscures it.

The lights are added in here with some Cad Yellow Light, white and a touch of umber to tone the brightness (although that's hard to tell from my camera). The reflected lights are more evident here.
I've also painted in the table top, although this too will be brightened eventually. A bit of Yellow Ochre and Burnt Umber with some Naples Yellow lights up the table.

The top right hand corner of the background looks a bit warm here. Some of that may be due to the fact that the cool light from the door behind me is not falling on that portion of the canvas.

In either case, I'll need to reassess in the morning with natural light coming in evenly. I have a skylight just outside the old studio that can be used for this purpose. I use two color corrected Ott Lights additionally, but find that the skylight is best for this. I will be such a boon when the new studio is finished. I have a seven by five foot arched north light window in it. Perfect for this sort of thing.

I've started to put in the shadows for the table cloth. Notice that I've painted out the leaves here. I know where they're going and have decided that it would be best to paint them in over the table cloth. This is always a last minute judgment call for me as I often paint them together with the cloth and background. I've been taking my time here so things are developing a bit differently. Shadow color is a bit of black, Cad Yellow Light and white. I've warmed it a bit with Burnt Umber.

I simplified the table cloth and reworked it several times before I felt I could leave it for a bit and move on to the cut apples. Like everything else, I'll revisit it several times during the next painting session. The cut apples were done much the same as the larger ones. Note that I've gone back and darkened the interior of the other apples.

The lighted table cloth is done with Naples Yellow and White. This is just a slightly warmed mixture of white, not a cooled mixture of yellow. But the temperature difference is enough to make the table top pop. Additionally, I took small amounts and used it on the flowers in a few places where I wanted the light to sparkle on the flowers. That warm light really works against the cooler pink . I know it sounds strange - but remember temperature is relative. My pinks are cool pinks and the white is a warm white.
This is perhaps the best representation of what is happening in the painting thus far. The color is a bit softer in this photo and the contrast not as sharp as in the others.

I deepened the shadows around the flower at the bottom that is drooping off the table edge and heightened the edges so that it stands away from the table cloth. The table cloth and the back of the table itself are softly inferred in the background. A little light peeks in behind the cut apples. I've also taken some Quinacridone Pink glaze and brushing it into the tips of the petals.

There's much I need to do here and I have only three days before they tear into my studio rendering it unusable for a few days. So tomorrow is another day. It's midnight and I've posted this first to my website so I'll copy it over to the blog in the morning. Nighty night.

How to Paint Peonies, Day Two

Well thanks for checking back in today. I actually painted this lesson over two days starting with the background yesterday and continuing with the flowers today. Here we go. If you'd like to read this lesson in a more consistent manner that flows from top to bottom without having to skip around blog style, click here.

The background was the first thing I started on with color. I generally choose an umber background for pink because the slight green tint sets off the pinks in the blossoms nicely. This mix was done with a combination of Burnt Umber and Raw Umber plus a bit of Cad Yellow Light and Naples Yellow. The lighter tones were done with a bit more Naples yellow. I was looking for a light feeling of tapestry here. As the painting develops I continue to work the background. I like to have it slightly wet as I work because that allows me to fade flowers into the background. Again - I apologize for the glare. Not much I can do about it under the circumstances. Each time I pause to take a picture, I have to turn lights on and turn others off. It's a bit tricky and breaks my concentration so I try not to have to do too much in that arena. Also, what looks fine in the camera, often looks quite different once I download the picture.

I worked some darker umber and Ultramarine Blue into the background on the lower left hand side and into the shadows on the tapestry.

For the vase, I used my usual mix of black, Cadmium Yellow Light and white along with a touch of the background color. For the light struck area, I used Cremintz White with a touch of Ultramarine Blue. Some of the shadow color was added as well. This is only a preliminary under painting for the vase.

I vowed this time around that I would try to give more step-by-step on the flowers - so here goes. I used a shadow color which was mixed by combining Quinacridone Red and Cadmium Red Light plus a bit of Cremintz White. The Cremintz White is a very thick impasto white with low tinting strength. Good for low tints and where you don't want to wash out the color. It's also lovely for building impastos.
I brushed this color combo into the areas where the darker richer interiors of the Peony face away from the light. I used a bit of Cadmium Orange to place warmth into those shadows.

When I mix these colors, I try not to over mix them with a palette knife, but instead use my brush and whip them up a bit to where they are delicately blended - like making muffin batter. Too much mixing and the muffins go flat.

For the reflected lights - always a tough call - I used a bit of Quinacridone Pink which has more blue in it. This was mixed with a bit of background color that had been lightened with touches of white to gray it a bit. Shadows are always deeper near to the object which casts them. So I brushed a bit of Raw Umber mixed with Ultramarine Blue into the shadows closest to the Peonies. The vase is still very simple at this point. I'm only suggesting the shape at the bottom where the shadow curves a bit. Later, I'll place some background color to deepen shadows and bring atmosphere forward into the painting. I've also deepened the shadows on the tapestry in the background.

Here's the close up. You can see the brush work is kept light. When painting the inside of a flower, you have to figure that that part of the bloom is receding from you and paint it thinly - just as you would shadows.

Here I've started to put in the highlights on the lit side of the flower. The paint is quite thick. I'm using the same color that I used in the interior passages but lightened with Cremintz White. I'm using a 1/2" DaVinci Filbert Bristle brush. Bristles are best for impasto work because they are just stiff enough to hold the paint.

For the initial strokes I used a 1/4 inch brush but decided that it looked too picky so I changed to a larger one and went to a technique that I'm comfortable with.

I didn't have anyone to take a picture of me laying in the petals so I'll have to describe the technique. After I've loaded the brush, I lay the bristle's at a 30 degree angle to the canvas and starting at the center of the bloom I make the petal using one stroke by pulling the brush outward to circumference of the flower. I apply more pressure at the start of the stroke and lift off the brush at the back end of the stroke. This is a little tricky and takes some practice.
This stroke is more evident in the last two pictures.

Notice that the lights are bright, but there's not enough punch or contrast between them and the shadows. This is because Cremintz is a low tint white. I'll fix that in the end by using a bit of the same color mix but with Titanium White and some Maroger Medium.


I next moved on to the back ground flowers. These were mixed with a bit of Quinacridone Rose which has a bit of blue in it. You can see that color in the flowers facing away from you. Because they are in the background and less distinct, I softened the edges by brushing some of the background into them.

Notice the large bloom in the front and the smaller bloom just behind it. There's not a huge difference in value here so I used a bit of edge control to push the one on the right back by making the edge of the flower in front a bit crisper. I also used little or no detail in the inside of the flower on the right. Less detail, less reason to spend time looking at it. Control your viewer's eyes by the use of edges as well as values.

Notice that I've painted out the leaves. I decided I would rather design them as I go in the last sitting. Those are details that will be a bit demanding and may take more than one sitting to get right so I'd rather not have to paint background around them when I'm done. Instead I'll use some Maroger to oil out the canvas and paint into it with the leaf colors when I'm ready. The background is an easy mix and can also be added if needed at a later point without having matching problems.

OK. I took another shot here to better evaluate the light. For this stage of the painting, I'm satisfied. I can see where I will want to darken some of the flowers on the left. This, however, is best left until they are dry and then I can just glaze into them. I rearranged the shapes of the larger flower and used the larger brush to do the petals. I have two more flowers to paint in the next session and then I want to re-evaluate the background and the overall shape of some of the blooms. Once I've tweaked those, I'll start into the objects on the table.

For the background, I'm considering a glaze with a very thin coat of blue to cool it a bit. I can better evaluate it in the light of day however, and I'll rethink it all in the morning. Good night and I'll continue with you tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by.

How to Paint Peonies

"The Peony Commission"
Working Title

Peonies are such beautiful, lush flowers that it's no mystery that they are loved by nearly all flower aficionados. I received this commission a couple of days ago and thought it might be fun to share the painting process with you.

The size of the painting is 18" x 24" at the request of the client. I sent her three compositional images and she decided on this vertical format. I'm glad because I'm a bit partial to this composition. Mainly this is because I love drama. Even in something as quiet as a still life, there can be great drama.

Notice how the composition is at eye level. You can basically divide the canvas into three areas. Below the table, the top of the table to the Golden Mein (about one third of the way down from the top, and the top one third where most of the flowers reside.
I chose an "S" composition for this floral as I often do in vertical compositions. Notice how the flowers form a backwards question mark or take an actual "S" direction. I chose green apples to offset the prinks in the flowers. I actually added some cut apples to the right after this picture was taken. They become apparent in the painting.

I first prepared the canvas a couple of days in advance by coating it with a thin layer of under painting white mixed with Liquin to help it's drying time. I did this for two reasons: first, I prefer a smooth surface to one with texture and I like the way paint moves on a surface that has been primed with paint. The white under painting will cause the flowers to glow with an appearance of light emanating from within as the painting ages.

When the canvas was dry, I drew with charcoal the actual placement of the major elements and then sprayed the whole thing with a touch of hairspray. Nice to know that stuff is still useful for something.
Next I wiped on a thin layer of Burnt Umber mixed with Quinacridone Orange and then started to lift out the lights. I like this process of under painting because it allows me to make decisions as I go. If something doesn't look right where I've placed it, I can easily move it by painting back into the toned canvas and wiping out the lights elsewhere. But my drawing was good here and I was pretty happy with the way the flowers were placed. I had made some changes to the flowers you see in the photograph until I was happy. Often, I won't see things that need fixing until I start to get things on canvas. That's why I can't work from photos. Things looked flat in the photo I sent to the client but really started to fill out nicely when I started actually lifting out the lights on the canvas.

Here you can see the under painting developed further. I added a bloom or two to the left and filled out some other areas. I moved the flower on the table further to the right and the small one further to the left to bring out more of the "S" shape I was referring to. The large Peony in the top left of center is right about on the intersection of the Golden Mein, the sweet spot of the painting and where I want the viewer's eyes to go. While it takes precedence now, it will be a challenge to keep it's importance once color is added.

I pulled out lights where the light spills from the left across the vase. You might notice now that there is no design on the vase. That's the last thing that gets added to the painting.
I've filled in some leaves and you can see now also where the apples and cut apples fall. I've brushed in some shadows as well to unify the piece.

OK. I'm about done here. The cloth is not quite finished and I'm thinking I'll change quite a bit on there as the painting proceeds. I often move the light source to provide a few shadows and lit parts on the cloth in the front. I don't want to do that until the majority of the painting is done as once the light moves, it's difficult to get things back where they were. While a purist might say that the shadows will not be true to life, an "artist" knows that what works in a painting is not generally true to life in all cases.

I've lightened the background on the right. This will add more depth to the painting later. It won't be bright, per se, but will be a softly shadowed mid tone to allow the flowers to fade into it. The left side will be darker.

All this, mind you, is subject to change. But for the most part, I'm happy with this first stage. Check back tomorrow or the next day to see the next step. Thanks for tuning in.

If the lesson is difficult to follow on the blog, I suggest you click here to follow it on my website where the type flows smoother. Just click on "Peony Commission" when you get there.

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 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.

Oil Painting Lesson on Glazing for Roses and Fruit, 14" x 18"

Day Two: I got into the studio early today excited with the anticipation of finishing my recent painting. Although I enjoy my direct ala prima paintings, nothing lights my fire more than bringing a painting up to a polish. Normally, I spend a lot more time on my polished pieces, but either I'm getting faster or I'm getting less "tight" on a lot of things that used to take me days. It's probably something of both as I enjoy a more painterly feel but also like the polished look that that extra session or two gives. OK, nuff talk. Except there is one thing. I forgot to add this pic of my cats who had snuggled together for warmth in the studio patiently waiting for dinner yesterday. Rough life.

All right. When I got in the studio this morning I tested the painting to see where it was dry and where it might need more time. As I suspected, most of the painting, except for the white vase was dry. White - except for underpainting white - has a lot more oil in it and takes significantly more time to dry. No matter, I figured I could still swing a decent glaze on it. Before I began, I oiled out on most of the canvas that was dry with a bit of Maroger medium.

As you remember, I had intended to darken the background a bit and so first thing I mixed a glaze composed of thalo green, alazarin crimsen and a touch of raw umber. I laid this in with a very large soft sable brush. I mainly stayed on the edges of the painting. My intent was to bring out the light in the center of the piece and around the flowers.

I like the way this came out. Glazing into a background provides a feel of stained glass. The light hitting the canvas goes through the glaze until it hits the canvas and then bounces back. If you use pure glaze (which I haven't) from the start, the effect is quite dramatic. It bears saying here that if you intend to do your entire painting by building up all transparent glazes, then you need to make your underpainting nearly perfect and about three keys lighter than the actual values you want to achieve. The reason for this is because the multiple glazes will darken the image significantly as you proceed. I like to use a combination of opaque paint and glazes. If done correctly, this can still be quite dramatic.


My next step was to work on the fruit. Using the same combination of cad red light, alazarin crimson and cad yellow with varying degrees of naples yellow, I built up the color tops of the plums.

Then using some quinacradone magenta mixed with the alazarin crimson, I created a glaze and darkened areas of the fruit where the turning edges where and the shadows.

I used a little cad red adjusted with the magenta to make some reflected light on the plums. In cool light set-ups, the reflected light on objects is generally warm. The last step was to mix a small amount of the magenta with white and scumble this on to create the bluish haze of the plums.

For the grapes I followed much the same steps but used a bit of cad orange to create the transparent color of light passing through the grapes.

The highlights were the same color as the bluish scumble but with a tad of naples to warm and lighten them. After applying them, I took the back of my brush and squiggled it on each highlight.

The last detail for the grapes were touches of red here and there and then, of course the stems. Just some yellow ochre. I thinned the mixture with some copal painting medium and used a small round for the detail.

At this point, I lightened the table cloth and brightened the top a bit with a scumble of naples yellow and white. If you can't get it bright enough on the first day, you usually can on the second. That cloth lit right up. I did the same for the table top, keeping my lights close to the fruit. I also used a bit of glaze in the shadows of burnt umber to darken the cast shadow directly under the fruit.

Now I turned my attention to the pot. I mixed a glaze of ultramarine blue and a bit of cobalt. I thinned this out quite a bit with Maroger and using that same small round sable brush, I laid in the design. Once I was finished with the basic design, I went back in with a liner brush and put in the outlines and details on the design. This didn't take quite as long as you might imagine. Probably the most difficult part was the single line at the top and bottom. I simplified the design overall by skipping another horizontal line that appears on the actual pot.

Lastly, I put in the reddish leaves you see on in the foliage and then using some darker blue/green glaze, I pushed some leaves back and scumbled some into the fore ground. I checked edges to be sure the ones I wanted sharp, were sharp and the rest I softened. At this point I took a cup of coffee, sat back and just visited with the patient for awhile. The last thing I did before signing the piece was to mix another darker glaze for the base of the cloth. I darkened it and then also put in the other side of the cloth behind it. If you take a look at my daily painting blog, you can get a close up of the flowers. Viola. Done.