Rose Tea Cup and Lilacs - Values

 Rose Tea Cup and Lilacs - Values

This little study took quite awhile to work out.

Rose Tea Cup and Lilacs ©2022 

I didn't paint much through COVID-19 so my visual judgments were definitely interrupted. Even with more time to paint, isolation did nothing to help me as an oil painter. 'It' left me feeling paralyzed with fear to move forward.  

Round Baby Blanket

The good news is that I was able to crochet (since I could follow patterns, it meant fewer decisions) and I was finding tea drinking a pleasant experience. Eventually I decided to gather my courage and paint tea cups!

Well, the whole business of painting has so many facets that I felt somewhat overwhelmed like when I first began to study painting. I could not even decide on composition, but determined to work through it so it was back to basics.

The hierarchy of principles and concepts shifted moment to moment, then I finally settled on working with the values since that is usually what makes a painting most readable. Here's the grayscale version according to auto settings. I'm a bit encouraged to keep going. 

B&W - Rose Tea Cup & Lilacs ©2022

Thanks for taking time to check in.  Be back soon. 

Developing Good Taste...

Developing good taste, as it applies to painting, is a topic foremost on my mind lately.

I've discovered that while I love to paint, applying the paint to the canvas in hopes of liking the result, I sometimes shake in my boots that I might never improve or reach the level I aspire towards. I know this state is common with artists, and hardly a matter of life and death in the strictest sense, but it is so important to me personally, that I will spend days thinking about it.

I'll ask myself if I've set my sights too high, or am I just setting myself up for failure? The only thing that settles me down is knowing I am willing to improve and change what is getting in the way of creating more successful paintings.

I often read articles like this one, or this one, to see if I can nail it down. I look at lots and lots of  images, and can clearly feel what resonates, and what feels off the mark to help me identify where my 'personal taste' fits into the big picture. Through my eyes it goes beyond what is pretty, and includes a measure of how a visual image communicates to me.

Along this journey, my intellectual understanding of the painting process is way ahead of my skills so my own work frequently misses the mark I'm shooting for, but I get that I won't improve if I don't paint.

Also knowing that I've picked up a lot of useless information that gets in the way really frustrates me, but the good part is - I am recognizing that this is happening.

There will be times the painting is acceptable for my skill level, and I save those to refer back to later - using it as a measuring tool for progress or not.

This most recent image is one of those images. It is actually several days of study, one bloom per day, trying different things with brushes, textures, and paint mixtures. The grouping was an afterthought so the composition feels awkward to me. If it looks thrown together void of well thought out design, you are correct. The lighting is only the over head bulb in my studio, and I made up some of the little flowers. Looking at it now, I think it could also use a little more greenery.

I was reluctant to post it, but courage is also a requirement for this process! ;o)

Rose Grouping NFS

Thoughts on the Structure of Roses... and Artificial Props

This week, I'm interested in a series roses, single blooms in various stages and colors to brighten my easel, and continue to work on values. It is sunny and warm for February here  in the NW, and roses are not yet blooming. So I decided to invest into some study time on the structure of roses. Why you may ask?

Well, I will be using artificial props, and there is something usually 'off' about them. It turns out that most real roses have 5 petals in each whorl, so if you are using artificial/silk blooms to study painting, this may not be what you will see. There are rose species that have 4 petals, but not many, and the number of whorls seems to vary as well.

The green 'thingys' that sit at the base of the bloom are called sepals, and match the number of petals in one whorl, and can be seen surrounding the bud. The sepals protect the buds, and later support the blooms.

The stamens produces pollen (male), and the pistil topped by the stigma (female part) is where the pollen is deposited.

At the end of the season, you might see rose hips, the fruit, depending on species. The actual leaves grow in groups, and I left off the thorns too. ;o)

If you would like more detail, the wikipedia can expand on this information, but for purposes of the artist learning to paint this beautiful flower, this short explanation should suffice and point you in the right direction when using artificial props.

I am not going for a photographic look just because I know the basic parts of the rose, but I think it helps to have some understanding of a painting subject. Both paintings are done on linen sheets.

The first is full bloom and clearly a value study. No mystery there, but with this particular silk prop, the petals are distinctly rolled over a bit as if it is wilted.

I decided to use a bright synthetic brush, size 12, to give a sharper edge to some of the petals rolled edges.

Rose Blk/Wht Study
© 2015

The smaller bloom below did not have the correct number of petals of a live rose, but went for it anyway, and hoped to give it the illusion of a natural rose. Knowing it should have 5 actually was helpful. Used various brushes on this one.

MidBloom Red Rose
© 2015

I have now added some new words to my vocabulary, and I don't have to say 'thingy' anymore when talking about roses!

Thanks for reading and hope this helps if you also need to use artificial props.

30/30 Challenge - Roses - Day 25-26

I've had these silk variegated roses sitting in a pale for at least 3 years, and everytime I think about painting them I resist. It looked like an overwhelming task and I'd tell myself to wait until my skills were better. Well I don't know that my skills are better, but I decided to take them on.

I think I got some courage from something I read about how to approach mixing a desired color. I was taught to 'paint what I see', but I always saw what I couldn't paint because of the limits of paint. Nothing as bright as the sun, and nothing as dark and a black hole...
I never really learned how to actually mix a desired color and wasted lots of paint and failed continuously trying to achieve what I was looking for...

Well recently I read that when looking at a setup, identify the color (keep it simple), red, blue, yellow, etc. Don't try to say orangey grayish purple or some other impossible hue that's clearly not on your palette! So after identifying the hue, then mix for the value of that simple color, and also adjust for temperature... and finally adjust for chroma.

Day 25

I wanted to take time to give this new approach some time since I'm usually just guessing what to do with the mixes. I laid in transparent color to start and identified the light and dark areas of the roses.

This took a bit of time, but I let it sit overnight before making more difficult decisions about color. I did some practice on my palette to be sure I could remember the sequence of mixing.

I was putting in a warm background for contrast to the cooler color in the setup. It's all relative... right?


Day 26

The exercise was not as difficult as I imagined. Could maybe adjust a few more things, but my goal was to try the mixing approach.

I have some practice to do, but this effort using the above approach resulted in colors that I was fairly happy with... after all these are variegated silk roses unlikely to ever be seen in nature!

I will attempt again soon and give a little more attention to the composition and light source for stronger shadow pattern.

Thanks for visiting...

30/30 Challenge - Solitary Rose - Days 17-18-19

I decided to tackle something a little sweeter smelling after the experience from the last few days!

What better than a Rose? Roses are one of the most beautiful flowers (my other favorite is the peony), but I find them challenging because of all the intricate details. They have a lot of color shapes and values within the overall shape which can make them seem too complicated to tackle. I found however, that if you can describe the main perimeter shape and the main basic interior shape, they are much easier to handle... and remember it isn't necessary to paint each and every little detail unless that is your painting style.

Day 17 

If you read my blog from Day 16, you will perhaps understand why I chose this paint subject and why it is only started. Nevertheless, I am still painting each day, and that's a very good thing.

Materials are acrylic primed linen sheet and my usual bristle brushes and color palette. The rose is and off-white silk type, and while it has a softer look that a real freshly picked bloom, it won't wilt on me while I'm getting my time schedule back on track. It is sitting in the little purple box with glass for reflections.

Wishing myself more time tomorrow to complete!

Day 18

I was working on this while the Seahawks game was on, so that blew the 'more time' idea. If you didn't see it, it was quite an amazing game with the adrenaline in overdrive; the Seahawks won the game in overtime after being behind for a good portion of the game! They are going to the Super Bowl!! I think in all the excitement, I got a little heavy handed. The paint is thicker in places it should be thinner and I was confusing the values. Maybe work with fewer values in the painting even if I see more in the set up. Some of the color also seems too intense. I'm not yet satisfied with the reflection either.

With this many areas in question, it might be a good idea, to scrape down and adjust. The lesson here, again, is to simplify.


Day 19

Day three on one small painting is my methodical brain going full tilt! After posterizing the first painting image in photoshop to simplify the image with fewer values and see what/where would work. This process isn't completely fool proof, but it is another way of evaluating what you've done.

Using the converted image with other judgments (the result of course is still judgment/opinion).

I didn't scrape everything before I started making changes, alas, I started to notice a few other things that I could do!

So this is the end result and time to move on... you may not be able to see the subtle changes, but one TIP to share is that the angle of the flower can make a difference on the complexity of what your painting. I'll be exploring this idea further in the very near future, and may do a black and white study in painting first using only 5 values to see how it translates from that... it may sound funny to some of you, but I'm really having fun training my eye to values - sooooo important in painting!

Thanks for reading...

Some Things About Online Auctions

Victorian Rose

The online auction scene has been great as a first step for me to get my work out and seen by as many eyes as possible. The images are small and starting prices have been set low for a couple reasons. One is to keep the art affordable as to entice a sale - so even folks on a small budget can buy an art piece; and also to see how the value is perceived by someone who buys because they really like and want the painting - not just because it is cheap.


However, I learned that getting them seen by people is a puzzle sometimes, and has a lot to do with how it is listed to fit the searches people do.


One of my buyers who is also my biggest fan right now taught me this lesson. She said originally she found me by 'accident' and then put me in her favorites, but shared with me how she did her searches. BIG HELP!!!!


I finally figured out that sometimes using the same words in the title/description as in the search labels and tags is a good way to be found.


If you my dear reader have any other helpful ideas that you'd like to share to get the work in front of more eyes, please let me know.

Pink Country Rose

Did I mention that I'd be painting more roses? Well this one has a little different personality from the traditional rose. Lots of soft varied petals. Honestly do not know the official name, but it reminded me of the country.

Painted with a mongoose extra long egbert brush... hope you like it.

SOLD

Pink Country Rose

6 x 6 Oil on Canvas Panel

© 2012

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose