Orange Rose Study

This rose is painted on an 8 x 8 inch (20cm x 20cm) panel which is a little larger than I have been using for a single subject, but I like to use a slightly larger brush and find it difficult to get into all the little crevices on roses if I go smaller. I think in future I will do all my rose studies this size. The rose is part of a bunch of beautiful vivid blooms I picked up at my supermarket a few days ago.

I have been making an effort to stay away from white where possible, because I want to keep my colours really saturated and in fact I didn't use any white at all for this painting, as you can see from this picture of the palette I used.

 A while ago I invested in some of the Gamblin radiant colours, after hearing Robert Gamblin himself talk about them on Leslie Saetas podcast, but I haven't been sure what to use them for.
I decided to have a go at using my radiant yellow in this painting and found that it is a great mixer and eliminates the need to use white. Now I know what to use the radiants for!
I mixed so many variations of orange for this painting, that I had to start another clean palette for the stems, leaves and background!


(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on gessobord panel

A bit about value...
I read about and listen to a lot of artists always talking about value. Value in painting terms basically means how much light and how much shade is being cast onto or cast by an object. Artists often say how important it is to learn about value and even that some artists do not understand value. What I'm puzzled by is that to me value is obvious. All objects hit by light are part in light and part in shade. I think everybody knows and understands this, but the trick is finding out how to represent that shade without resorting to just adding black or some dark colour that approximates the body colour of the object you are painting.

Now last night I happened to be reading the book 'Fill your oil paintings with light and colour' by Kevin Macpherson. In it he says this;

"Nature describes itself in full spectrum. Color has three qualities; hue, value and chroma. I will use the term color or color note interchangeably to mean the sum of these quantities. Analyse everything as a particular color note.

If you can learn to see color notes, you do not have to worry about value, because that comes automatically."

Exactly! The trick to representing something three dimensionally in painting is seeing shapes, and the shade as a colour in its own right.

Not that I think that really getting to grips with value makes you a great artist, it just depends on what your intention is. Van Gogh cared little about value in his best work but produced some of the most beautiful paintings. I think finding how to represent value is a good starting point though...

 This painting is available