In honor of the beautiful bouquet Ryan had waiting for me when I got home from a week away, I am still painting it.
This is painting 4/4 from the bouquet and I see them getting progressively more interesting and beautiful to look at… As well as faster to paint! This one took about an hour and forty-five minutes to set up, mix paints, paint, and tear down. Not bad!
I wanted to focus again on creating a harmonious background with my subject. I sketched the subject out first, then mixed paints as I went since the palette for this one was so easy, nearly monochromatic.
It was fun on this one to block in the shapes and values loosely with paint mixed with spirits and medium. It helped to create a nice base to work off of and I think left some feelings of spontaneous brushwork behind. Very nice. That’s what I’m going for!
The composition was also in my mind and I think having the center of these flowers in the bottom right rule of thirds is working wonders.
Finally, I finished up by muting the saturated pink background down. This helped bring a little green in to contrast with the red flower and lessen the competition.
It seems the principles of value, color, edges, composition, and form are ENDLESS to play with. Will I ever feel I understand them well enough to paint on big huge beautiful canvases? Maybe! Until then, I keep working on these smaller surfaces and enjoying the expediency and ritual. Ahhh.
