"Smell the Roses" (oil on stretched canvas; 8" x 10") nfs

nfs

 The New Year's resolutions: paint often, paint better and smell the roses!

"Rose Shadows" (watercolor; 6" x 6")

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Cast shadows on the rose petals, dark shadows on leaves, and deep violet shadows beneath! Don't you love all these beautiful shadows?

"Rose Glamour" (watercolor; 8" x 6") sold

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A peachy rose bush at its peak. What a gorgeous and glamorous sight!

"Passion Rose" (watercolor; 7" x 5")

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A hot, red rose is the embodiment of passion, isn't it!

"Delicate Beauty" (watercolor; 7" x 5") sold

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Some roses are hot and passionate; others delicate and bashful. This one is definitely a delicate beauty!

"Smell the Roses" (oil on stretched canvas; 8" x 10") nfs

nfs

A couple of weeks ago, my daughter and I went to the Bon Air Memorial Rose Garden in Arlington, VA to admire roses.  It was too hot to linger, but I was able to take a few good pictures for my rose paintings.  My daughter happened to take the picture below when I was smelling roses.  I really liked it, so I decided to paint a self-portrait out of it.  What do you think of my efforts?

The reference photo

"Scarlet Beauty" (oil on linen; 8" x 6")

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I decided to paint another red rose, this time against a yellow/mauve background.  I am happy to report that the second rose painting went a little faster.  As they say, practice makes perfect!

"Regal Rose" (oil on linen; 8" x 8")

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I don't usually paint red roses.  Getting the velvety feel of the red petals feels like too much trouble, especially when the intense red color seems to absorb light and doesn't offer much value differences to go by.  But since I am in the middle of a rose fest, I decided to challenge myself to paint some.  Challenge it was.  After much work, the regal rose emerged!

"Pink Rosebud" (oil on linen; 7" x 5")

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Ever since I took Danni Dawson's workshop in June, I am wild about roses.  I feel like I finally learned to paint the queen of all flowers.  Petal by petal, leaf by leaf, a rose emerges against the dark ground.  The promise of the fully-open flower makes this pink rosebud even more enchanting!

"Monet's Rose Arbors" (oil on stretched canvas; 14" x 18") sold

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If there is the heaven for rose lovers, it will look exactly like this. I can stay in this garden of Monet's with a row of rose arbors forever!

"Summer Roses" (oil on stretched canvas; 10" x 8")

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During the week of June 8th, I took a workshop of my teacher, Danni Dawson, at her house in Arlington, VA.  What a workshop it was!  Six of us painted in her rose garden, then when the weather became oppressively hot, we went inside to paint still lives in her spacious studio.  Danni, a gourmet cook, also prepared every lunch of an Italian dish made fresh with vegetables from her garden!

"Summer Roses" was the first painting of the workshop, which I didn't quite get to finish. Yesterday I worked on the leaves to make the painting more lush.  How do you like it?

I started the painting on the canvas toned with an ultramarine blue, which became part of the background. Cool, don't you think?

This is how far I got on Monday. After a heavy thunderstorm that night, the flowers were all gone!

"Roses Roses Yellow Roses" (watercolor on paper; 7" x 10")

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Yellow roses in the sun warm my heart and lift my soul!

"Belle Yellow Roses" (oil on linen; 8" x 8")

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I got pinks out of my system, so yesterday, I painted yellow roses from the same garden in New Bedford, MA. 

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

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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?

"Smithsonian Castle Rose Garden" (oil on stretched canvas; 18" x 18") sold

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Then

It is with a great pleasure that I am sharing the new, better "Smithsonian Castle Rose Garden". Can you believe how much improved I am as a painter?  It is the same, yet totally different painting.  In understanding of color temperatures, the color-mixing ability, and confident brush strokes, it might as well be done by a different artist.

By the way, the painting shows the rose garden at the eastern end of the Smithsonian Castle on The Mall in Washington, DC.  If you visit the garden at the right time of the year, you will be enveloped in the thick perfume of roses in full bloom.  I am planning on visiting it next week!

Collage of My March Paintings

Collage of My March Paintings

March is almost over!  What a month it has been!  A snow storm after a snow storm. Yesterday we had an all-day-long snow/hail/sleet/rain "deluge", which caught weather forecasters by surprise and caused a major leak in my storeroom.  I am fervently hoping that I saw the last of the snowflakes for the season.

You may have noticed that I painted only nine paintings during a 31-day month.  Why? My artistic enthusiasm has been flagging.  I had to dig deeper and deeper into my old photo files to look for painting inspirations.  It has been a drag.

But no more.  The long-overdue spring has finally sprung!  My garden is about to burst with spring flowers.  Here are some I caught this sunny morning.

White daffodils

Miniature daffodils being watched over by a pig statue!

Crocuses and snowdrops

Hyacinths buds

Goodbye, winter.  Hello, spring!

"Rose Arbor" (oil on stretched canvas; 12 x 16")

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Don't you want to walk through the blue arbor gate, heavily laden with the cascading roses?  I can almost smell the enchanting perfume of the old-fashioned roses called "Pinky".  No, I don't live in this lovely house with a rose garden.  It belongs to my old friend, Beth.  Eve in the title is her cute little daughter's name!

"US Capitol Rose Garden" (oil on linen; 10" x 8") sold

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Last September I went downtown to take pictures of the Capitol.  It was too early for the trees to change colors, but crepe myrtles still in bloom more than compensated for my mild disappointment.  I squatted down to have the pink roses in the foreground.

The new painting looks similar to the one I did last summer--"Capitol Hill in Summertime"--I guess, because of the floral foreground.  It's just that the white architecture of the Capitol alone can be a bit severe without something to soften it and add color interests.  Which painting do you like better?  For me, "US Capitol Rose Garden" seems to have a more feeling of space.

"Capitol Hill in Summertime"
oil, 15" x 8"
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"Sunny Roses" (oil on linen; 6" x 8") sold

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Reference photo

These are the same roses as in "Yellow Roses" from a slightly different angle.  Much can be said for painting the same thing over and over again.  One gains a deeper understanding of the subject through the repetition with variation.  Here I was trying to get to the bottom of how to paint natural-looking leaves.  Perhaps, the only drawback in working in a series is coming up with an exciting  title each time!

"Saintly Garden at Carmel Mission" (oil on linen, 5" x 4") sold

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While travelling in California three years ago, I found  this statue of a Franciscan saint at Carmel Mission.  It probably is Father Serra, who died in 1784.  He is gently holding a crucifix in his arms in the midst of a beautiful garden.