“Blue vase with tulips and freesias”
“I must have flowers, always and always.”
Claude Monet
I started this week with a quote from Claude Monet, one of the greatest painters of all times, the founder of French impressionist painting. He is one of my two favourites painters, (the other one being Vincent van Gogh) and he also said: “I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers”.
Many artists painted and still paint flowers, everyone having a different approach to the subject. Some paint them realistic, others more impressionistic, or even abstract. Some of the Romanian old masters painted flowers, most famous for his flowers being Stefan Luchian.
Amongst them all I try to paint flowers the way I feel them.
And as a celebration of spring I have chosen for this week to paint flowers again, this time in a blue vase. The flowers, a little bunch of tulips and freesias.
I started with a canvas under painted in yellow, and then I did the background in layers with a purple and 3 shades of red, mixed with medium. For the wall I used them mixed partially and for the table top I mixed them better and lighter.
I did the vase in 3 layers using Prussian blue, azurite and a warm white (lead white substitute from Michael Harding).
I used the same 2 blues for mixing the greens.
So there it is No 9 of my “A painting a week”
“Blue vase with tulips and freesias”
Oil on linen.
30 X 40cm (12”X 16”).
