Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Second Painting - 'Orange Poppy' 12"x16"



This is my second painting. I worked from a calendar photo...no tracing...I did graph it a bit, then drew it the best I could. I love the vibrant peachy orange, and the beautiful ruffled edges. Working with these colors really brightened my days. I worked on this in weekly studio sessions, (Schrodt Art Studio, Louisville, KY) 7, maybe 8 in all. I know that's a long time, but I was really fascinated with the process of trying to blend, or not blend, trying to mix the exact colors I saw, and, to be honest, I was really nervous about the middle of this thing! I really didn't know how I was going to do it, and was wishing I had picked something a little easier. However, after putting it off as long as I could, I decided this big orange poppy wasn't going to beat me, so I just globbed on a bunch of the purple/black, filled in the fuschia center, then left it like that for a while. After a few strokes of the purplish-gold, I knew I had won. I know oil paintings aren't necessarily supposed to look just like the photograph, but this one does, pretty much. It was all very absorbing. Sometimes I had to tell myself to breathe. Do I want to paint like this always? Maybe not so much. Maybe a little more 'painterly'. I'm going to work on that. Oh, and by the way, I finished, and framed this one to go in the studio's art show, along with 'Morning Glories'. I ran up so close to the deadline, I forgot to sign it, didn't have time to varnish it...and it's been hanging on my wall all this time without a signature. I took it out of its frame TODAY, and signed it. I'm glad I can finally show it here.

2 comments:

  1. Your Poppies are beautiful...the bottom poppy is very detailed, thank you for explaining how you had created such a pretty flower, both of the flowers looks rather difficult with the petals.

    I found your blog from Brush Strokes of Wanda's in her comment area.

    I also like your photos as well.

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  2. Thank you Rosy. My 16-yr. old daughter loves this one, so I'll probably re-frame it to go in her room.

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