“Garden flowers and roses in a vase.”
Another week, another challenge and another painting finished. I was torn between plein air painting and another still life. Weather was good and dry, but after another challenging week at work, I have decided to stay indoors for the weekend. And it is plenty to paint as well. However, because the roses are in full bloom and I like roses a lot, I set up a still life with some flowers from the garden and a couple of roses.
I worked using a larger palette than usual, with four yellows, three blues, three reds, asphaltum and white. And this was a challenge, not only because the size of the wooden palette, but the number of possible combinations. This is huge!
Anyway, I painted using the sightsize method, as per most of my recent paintings, looking from about 5 feet away from the setup. For the lights I used my barn door lighting unit with 150 Watt bulb, now fitted with a dimmer.
I painted it alla prima, using few layers for the background, to obtain the right effect.
Being one of my first few paintings with roses, I still struggled a bit, but with more concentration I think I was able to render the roses better than before; I now start to understand the structure of a rose, which is quite complex. Hence, in the end, I think it was a good and refreshing experience.
So, here it is:
“Garden flowers and roses in a vase.”
Oil on linen.
30 X 40cm (12” X 16”).
