I drew out a relatively simple drawing of three of the roses, adjusting their positions, as I did not want to bring them indoors, so did the drawing from the studio window.
I painted the petals of all three roses first using almost nothing other than Transluscent Orange with the occassional addition of Cobalt Teal Blue. At this stage, progress seemed ok and the composition and accuracy of the flower heads was fine. I had remembered to avoid painting over the pencil line so that I could remove them at this stage.
I then started to paint in the dark areas of the background using mainly mixtures of Indigo, Quinachridone Rust and Apatite Green. I kept it really dark in the top LH corner, add gradually added more water as I came around the LH edge. I painted the RH side with transluscent Orange to try to get the lost edges I wanted from the RH rose.
This photo may not look too bad, but the original painting, at this point, looks pale, insipid and in all honesty, a bit flat.I wanted the flowers to have more of the 'umph' they would have in the sunshine. I know this is achieved by the strong contrast between the lights and darks. I can see that there are still plenty of lights but it is sadly lacking in the strong darks.
Working on the premise that the cast shadows are just a darker version of the petal colour, I mixed some strong Transluscent Orange with a little Quinachridone Rust and with trepidation added it to various parts of the painting on the LH side of each flower.
Now I think the shadows have become quite muddy and I would love them to look fresher and less overworked, so I will need to keep trying with other combinations to see what I can produce.
See what you think.
Usual Fabriano Artistico paper, with mainly Daniel Smith paints
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