Tea and Flowers - Completed Painting

[Verdaccio]

Thanks to all for your comments as I worked this:)

http://www.fineportraitsinoil.com/TeapotDone1.jpg

And some detail:
http://www.fineportraitsinoil.com/TeapotDoneDetail.jpg

[Leaflin]

Wow!
What a beautiful piece.

[Rose Queen]

This really is superb! After all was said and done, did you feel the underpainting was worth the trouble?

[Verdaccio]

Originally posted by Rose Queen
This really is superb! After all was said and done, did you feel the underpainting was worth the trouble?

First, Thanks to both of you for your complements. :)

Rose Queen. Yes, I really did find that the underpainting helped me. This is the way I have been trained to paint and even though it is a little more work, it seems to create a more luminous glow from within the painting - light bouncing off and through layers of paint. One of the problems I have always had with alaprima technique is that you aren't building any layers for the light to penetrate through - it just bounces off the surface of the opaque paint topically applied. Plus, this technique gives me multiple opportunities to refine. :)

[Javier]

Michael, an absolute fine piece of work. IMO the 'Tea Vase' is strong enough that there is no need for the large red rose.

The work you have put into this work can be seen.

The Best,

[TeAnne]

OMG, I have been waiting for this. PERFECTO I love the teapot and the light on it and that blood red rose. Oh WOW. This is breath takingly beautiful.

[bruin70]

verdy,,,,,nice design. at first, i was confused a bit by the reflection. i originally thougt it was a stand or base of some kind. whether there was enough to read it as is, is unimportant because its design placement is unique. it was a hard read because there is really nothing in the reflection that stands out to identify it as a reflection.

as an EXTREME example,,,,if there was a bold lime X painted on the vase that reflected in the table, the reflection would have been immediately identifiable as a reflection. your vase reflection, however, is very generic. you only see its bottom. and maybe this was so. but,,,say,,,adding a part of the base of the handle would have cinched the idea of the reflection. you relate the identifiable parts to each other. i would have moved the red flower reflection over to the left to match up also. now, this may not have actually been so in real life,,, but sometimes you have to make the eye believe in something that isn't there....{M}

[Verdaccio]

Milt: Ya know, you have hit upon exactly what bothers me about this painting - the reflection looks real, but not quite real enough. The table is very shiny, so the cloth which is close I did fairly crisp, next the red rose which was less crisp, but still close enough to get some detail. The pot is fairly way back so I wanted it to be pretty blurred - a beginning of a pot handle would have made it much more identifyable as a reflection.

Ah well, live and learn. :) Thanks for the advice!