“A vase with freesias on a Persian table cloth.”
As the year comes to an end, with only few days remaining I wanted to do something more complex than before. One of my favourite subjects in still life was, recently flowers. And, even though is winter, you can still find flowers at the local supermarket. So, I bought a nice bunch of yellow freesias, with shades varying from deep yellow to pale yellow, nearly white. I did the set up using a vase I used couple of times before. It is hand made by a Dorset potter and we bought it from an exhibition at “Statues by the Lakes”, for local artists, when we visited the place. Lovely little vase. As a back drop I used a Persian table cloth, which added complexity to the composition.
I used my usual palette, adding cadmium yellow deep, and lapis lazuli. For medium I used turps, as I always do, for thinning the paints and cleaning the brushes and I also used liquin, especially with dark colours, because it helps keeping them brighter and deeper. Without medium, dark colours tend to dry duller and loose their intensity; I experimented before and I know that liquin is a good choice for nice darks.
I painted it all prima over few sessions. The longest it took me to do the background and the vase, and at the end I added the flowers with thick paint, then the shadows and highlights.
Another problem I encountered is related to the ambient artificial light. Because I am mostly painting after work and this time of the year, there is no daylight then, I find myself painting mostly in artificial light. And, because the light is too bright and warm, I find difficult to adjust the colour temperature. When I am under the working conditions, the colour temperature appears warmer than when I bring the painting into daylight. I will have to change the lights to a full spectrum light and less powerful, ideally around 40 to 60W. This way I hope that I would be able to work better with the temperatures.
So, this is my last painting of the year 2018 (a total of 86 paintings, mostly in oils – 6 watercolours and some drawings in charcoal):
“A vase with freesias on a Persian table cloth.”
Oil on linen.
30 X 40cm (12” X 16”).
