Skip to main content

Spring"Flow" Show Features Three of My Paintings

In January I embarked on a new self-imposed oil painting project/collection, with the goal of down-selecting three paintings for Dreama Tolle Perry's spring Flow membership art show. Picking a subject for a collection and staying focused was a challenge for me; my mind is usually racing around in a million artistic directions. I knew I wanted something static, that I could work on without it changing. Fake flowers as a still life were the perfect choice! They wouldn't wilt in the direct studio light, and I could make them do whatever I wanted. Still, I wanted it to be simple, so I refined my collection subject a step further. 

From left to right: Rose-Bauer Duet (oil, 6"x8"), Voodoo (oil, 6"x8"), and Peace (oil, 6"x6").

I own a single beautiful silk rose, bought at a specialty store last year. If I had to guess, it's modeled on the Peace hybrid tea rose. So I decided all ten of my paintings for the collection would be based on this single rose. From there, I mind mapped a whopping 35 ideas that I could see painting. I refined a few other choices, too (palette, technique, size), so that I could eliminate as much "waffling" as possible, which often derails me when starting a painting. 

I'm happy to report that I made eight paintings! And I chose two of them for Dreama's show, which is online now for another two weeks. Peace was #2 in the collection and Rose-Bauer Duet was #8. I'm amazed at how much better I rendered the rose in the final painting than when I started, although there is a freshness to the earlier rose that I really like. And obviously, there are another six paintings that vary in my happiness with the outcome, including one painted solely in burnt umber as a value study because I was so frustrated with those darn yellow shadows. 

The Voodoo painting was completed late last year, as the last of the roses from my garden were blooming before winter set in. That particular painting is my third attempt. Not that the other two are bad, but this one really captured the intensity of color along with the value patterns in the flower.  

As usual, I was pretty critical of my paintings, but now that the show is up and they've been out of my mind for over a month, I have to say that I'm pretty proud of myself. Sure, there's room for improvement, but overall, I had an intention to participate in the show, and I set the goals needed to get it done. That, in my book, is success. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mean Critic Meets Scary Progress

I'm continuing to work on my value studies and bouncing all over the place, both with subject and with medium. I swear that one of these days I'll find my lane. There are things I like and dislike about oils, acrylic, and watercolor. There's not a perfect medium, but oils sure are easier for working on composition and value.  As the year is coming to an end, I'm wrapping some things up and getting ready to launch other things. I went through my last three years of paintings (about 150) and categorized them as keep for myself, make available for gifts or purchase, or repurpose (at first I had labeled them trash, but that just seemed so mean, and I really can use the paper for other things). With the gift/sell category, I created a PowerPoint file with all available paintings, categorized by subject. Each was labeled and priced...a scary declaration on my part that my creativity is valuable. In the coming year, I will use this file to create a new website for my growing a...
1 comment
Read more

Value Epiphany!

For the new year, I've decided that before I start a painting, I'll note the goals for that painting session and/or the finished product if I'm not painting alla prima (in one session). I've sort of informally been doing this for the last couple of months, but now I want to consciously follow these steps: 1) write down my goals, 2) paint, 3) acknowledge that the painting is crap ( see previous post ), 4) note how I did or did not meet my goals, and finally, 5) create a next steps list. Of course, these steps won't be executed until I've done the all-important value studies! Last October I painted a lesson from Dreama Tolle Perry's Flow class , a cute carafe of cream with a white ceramic basket of strawberries. The basket didn't read "white" in my painting, which I didn't like, and I wanted to figure out why...but I wanted to use my own still life to do it.  So I set up a scene informed by Dreama but all my own. My scene used my own props to...
Post a Comment
Read more