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Great! I’m heading outside to paint cherry blossoms.
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/Well, I did do a sketch of neighborhood cherry blossom trees, but it didn’t turn out all that great, so I don’t plan to post it. I’ve been traveling for the past week, and I’m out of practice.
Nonetheless, I had two life-drawing classes tonight (one a makeup), and lo and behold, the model showed up with a flower in her hair. So I did two portraits of her, neither of which is a good likeness; my excuse is that it’s a classroom setting, so I was 20 feet away from the model, and I only had a couple hours for each pose. (The real reason is that I was tired and rusty.) Anyway, I did get the gesture of the flower, lol.
The first painting is oil on panel, 11″ x 14″; the second is oil on panel, 12″ x 16″. C&C welcome.
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/Geoff, your portraits are very well done for two hours. I like your skin tone colors! The flower value and color fits nicely to the painting.
I haven’t found flowers from stores and I didn’t go to a special flower store either but when I find yellow flowers I will buy and paint them. I felt bad for not finding any. Luckily I noticed today there are some spring flowers in the garden already so I painted them this afternoon. My first thought was to paint thru window but I couldn’t see well the small flowers so this is 100% plein air, done in one sitting. Size about 20×20 cm, oil on canvas. I noticed there are other blue flowers blooming soon so will paint them next week.
There’s glare of fresh and quite thick paint. I was trying to avoid too dark mud color but it turned out quite dark. I also used a tiny little bit of lamb black but the dark brown is Old Holland Van Dyke brown, which is actually quite black.
with the models:
Hi Moscatel,
Wow, those are wonderful flowers! I just love them. You really captured the spirit not only of the flowers, but also of the plant as a whole. I also think your choice of darks — your dark browns and lamp black — works really well. The darks make the white flowers pop! They are clearly the star of the show, which is as it should be.
I’m also pleased to hear you did this plein air. Thanks in particular for posting not only your painting, but also the photo of your original “model.” I’m always interested in how people translate the complexity of real life into paint.
Thanks again for posting! I’ve just done one quick oil sketch of some pink tulips — cut flowers I brought home from the store. I’m going to do a slightly more careful study this afternoon, and if it works okay, I’ll post it here.
It’s starting to feel more like springtime in this thread!
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/I took a week off painting and March, and have I been struggling to regain my form this month. I posted a couple nice paintings in my March “life” thread, but I haven’t done one I’m happy with since.
Well, the cure for this is to paint more (and to think more before putting down brushstrokes). So I did a couple oil sketches of tulips yesterday. These are cut tulips from the local flower store. I put them in a vase, set them up as a still life at home, using an LED lamp and a blue cloth background. But I wish I’d used the light to create better shadows. Plus, under the lamp, the tulips quickly began to droop and wilt!
I did the group of three first, then the lone tulip second; its petals were wilting, which I tried (not very successfully) to depict in my little painting. I find it surprisingly hard to paint a close-up of a tulip unless there are strong shadows. I need to be more patient in describing the subtle value and color shifts. Still, it was good practice.
Today’s a pretty day, and I have daffodils and some early-blooming azaleas in my garden. Maybe I’ll have a go at some of those.
These tulips are six-by-six inches, oil on panel. Small little studies, really. C&C welcome.
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/Geoff, it really is educating to paint these quick sketches daily or so. I have one other painting started and I’m hoping to finish it by August for a gallery exhibition. Both are different kind of paintings with different goals but both are important, I think.
Finally I got the yellow flowers today and I hope it is daffodil but I can be wrong too. Will see when it opens. I wanted to paint something quick and very small to figure out how to paint them bigger when they are open. I was painting maybe about half an hour and they started to open already!! Too fast for me. Maybe I need to go outside to paint them tomorrow so that they stay more stable longer.
Here is what I did today: oil on cardboard, miniature size
Really neat, Moscatel! You used delicious opaque yellow paint on those flowers. Was it a cadmium yellow of some sort?
I am no expert on botany, but my first reaction was that those might be tulips. I’m not sure, though; as you say, we’ll see when they open up!
You’re doing exactly what I’m doing: small studies that you can finish in an hour or so. It’s great to have longer-term studio projects going, but I also think it’s worthwhile to do small studies frequently. I learn something from every one. Plus I don’t get so emotionally attached to a small, quick study, so I’m more inclined to experiment, and less disappointed by failures.
Thank you so much for participating in my little oil-from-life thread. It helps motivate me knowing someone else is working on flowers too.
I hadn’t planned to make public the picture below because I wasn’t happy with the painting. I was reasonably satisfied with the flower itself; it was the composition, background, and greens that failed. (In other words, most of the picture was a failure!) The daffodil in question was actually resting against a short brick wall, so I bent down and tried to compose it with sky/clouds in the background. Not a very successful effort, but it was interesting to try. I did take a photo of my setup, so maybe I’ll post that tomorrow. It’s 6″ x 6″, oil on panel. C&C welcome, but be gentle — I know it’s not great, lol.
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/I had a better painting session today! These are azaleas in my backyard. They’re not fully blooming yet; in fact, I’m surprised they’re out at all, as my other azaleas have barely started to bloom. But I figured I should paint them while I can. If they or their compatriots bloom more fully, I’ll have another go at them. Oil on panel, 6″ x 6″, C&C welcome.
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/Geoff, well done with the flowers! Sometimes I feel I should paint 100 flower sketches before getting a decent one to post but in that case I would never be able to post anything. To answer your question, the yellow is a low quality color and the pigment prob. won’t last, but I mixed a lot of titanium white to get it as light as the model was/is. Often when painting on cardboard I only use low quality paints.
It’s sad
that no-one else wants to paint spring flowers, not even a quick sketch. It’s not often when someone like Geoff and Nancy offers to start a thread like this. It’s a lot of work to start and host a challenge like this. So thanks for doing this Geoff. I post a detail of what I’m doing with the daffodils next. They turned out to be daffodils after all. Total size of my painting is 55×41 cm, it’s a studio painting, I’ve the base color now and when I stretch it to bars I see what else fits to the canvas (more flowers maybe) and might continue with it. The canvas was originally stretched and has another painting on the other side so to paint to the back side I took it off the stretching bars. Ah, when I started painting it yesterday there were only 3 flowers but when I woke up this morning .. you can see below.
Happy Easter!
Oh wow, those are gorgeous, Moscatel! You have put more detail (and probably more work) into your daffodils than I did into mine. Those colors look good to me; I wouldn’t have known they were lower-quality paint. I hope you’ll show us the entire painting at some point.
And you were right — those ARE daffodils after all. Silly me, thinking they might be tulips.
I wonder why they all bloomed over night. Did the weather there suddenly get warmer?I really do appreciate your contributions to my thread! It’s nice to have some company here, lol. I don’t expect everyone to drop everything and paint flowers from life; I know people are busy. But a few more quick sketches would be welcome. (Incidentally, I’d be curious if you have any suggestions for my May “oil painting from life” thread. I could do flowers again, but I was also thinking “anything plein air”.)
I like that we have all sorts of colors in the thread now: yellow daffodils, pink tulips, purple azaleas. I’m going to try to paint some white dogwood-tree flowers today. I suppose we need some blue flowers to round things out. I almost bought a pot of blue iris flowers the other day; maybe I’ll do that yet.
Also, your post reminded me that I need to upload a few more daily paintings to Nancy’s thread. I do a painting almost every day, but I’ve been lazy about photographing all of them. I’ll go do that now and post one or two.
Thanks again for participating. I can’t wait to see how those daffodils turn out!
- Geoff.
My website and blog: https://www.geoffwatsonart.com/
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