Personal Art Blog

Sharing the lessons I teach at the Artist Guild and the personal discoveries in my art.

Friday, April 20, 2012

Spider Mum Study



Spider Mum Study

8x6in  oil on canvas panel  100.

Using the same flower arrangement I painted from yesterday,
 but concentrating on the Spider Mums.
They are more of a delicate flower than I realized. I think of mums as sturdy
because they last a long time but the long thin petals easily bruise and droop.


Artist Note.

I had to concentrate on breaking the background into the oval mass of petals
in an uneven manner to show the long, thin petals.
For those of you who like to have a more painterly approach the following
is how I do it.


 First, make a mass of base color
in general shape.
Sargent used an olive color to mass
in his whites. I used transparent
Indian Yellow with
ultramarine blue and a little bit
of transparent oxide brown (if too green.)
I also find orange and a yellow green
is very good but I wanted it to be transparent.
    Next I placed my cool color reminder...
    underneath and in the shadows
    and then I found the center which in the
    actual flower is a green shade.
    I used a soft blue/violet gray
    for the shadows areas.
  I get a general idea of the petals and
  use a cool color in the shadows.
  It helps not being too careful with this stage
  - just plunk strokes down and leave them alone.
  Having some of the base color between the
  petals is good.
This is the important part.
I painted the background into
and between the petals, which
merges some of them softly and allows
me to have a few crisper edges.

This method can create 
the desirable, uneven negative 
areas.
Even if the flower looks perfect
all the way around, (in real life)
I find it is better to cut back into
the circle, here and there.
It creates a more interesting shape.




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7 comments:

  1. It's very nice, and thank you for the step to step!

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  2. This is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing information about how it was painted. I'd really like to try this method. Thank you again.

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  3. Wow, I am with Sue, thanks so much for the mini-demo. It all makes so much sense, how come I did not know this before??

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  4. fantastic study....and a great tutorial!

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  5. Great lesson Julie and love your result !

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  6. It is wonderful to have these nuggets of painting insight arrive in my email from your blog. THANK YOU for sharing. I save all your "Artist Notes" in an efile for reference. Thanks again for taking the time to help others.

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  7. Excellent post! Thank you, the underpainting for whites is great.

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I love that you are taking the time to comment and thank you for it. I am sure other readers will enjoy them too. If you cannot comment through this format then email me at juliefordoliver@gmail.com
Cheers,
Julie