Tuesday, August 12, 2014

"Pink Roses in Summer Afternoon" (oil on linen; 8" x 8") sold


sold


We visited a rose garden in New Bedford, MA during our family vacation.  It was an enchanting place.  I lingered as long as I could, which wasn't long enough.  Yesterday I painted pink roses from the garden.  By the way, Old Town in New Bedford is fabulously restored to its former glory as the world's foremost whaling port in the 19th century.


The enchanting rose garden in New Bedford, MA

Here is the transparent underpainting.  I learned this method from the popular workshop teacher Dreama Tolle Perry.  What it does, as far as I am concerned, is to help the artist to see the values and color temperatures of the project.  One also gets to approach it as mass, not lineally.  The dark rose at the bottom left was added afterwards because I realized the area needed something warm to balance the rest of the picture.

I am refining the flowers without getting too fussy.  It is hard to figure out the colors of petals in shadow.  The sensation of the blinding light is created by keeping the edges of sunlit petals fuzzy.

Fingers are an effective tool in softening edges.  Do you know edges (hard versus soft) are one of the most important things in a painting?

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