Printers Posy

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 6

Persevering with the Gerberas.
For this one I wanted to try an approach that a lot of artists use (but I don't use often) -which is 'blocking in'; ie you block in all the main colours and then you go back and add highlights and refinements later. The idea is that you start with an impression of the painting, getting the main colour themes right first. Not my comfort zone, but I'm trying to experiment with different techniques. I would not in general take this approach - I'm not generally a fan of working over the top of paint I have already laid down but I decided to give it ago here, just to see.

Here's a progress shot to show what I mean. At this stage I have really just put down three colours on the yellow flower: a bright yellow, a yellow ochre and a slightly darker ochre.
Then I went back in and added some definition. I think this worked really well with the yellow gerbera. It was much harder to do with the pink gerbera as the petals varied in colour from one to the next.

The little bud vase I picked up a couple of weeks ago in Crate and Barrel. I ummed and ahhed for ages as it was priced at $4 (big spend!). When I got to the checkout it was reduced to $2, so now I have 4 of these in different colours!

'Printers Posy' (the title), refers to the colour theme here turned out to be almost Yellow, Magenta and Cyan (process printers colours). I made this connection about half way through the painting.

(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord

Pretty in pink

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 3

For this painting I decided to try lighting the vase from slightly behind and to the left, and to simplify things, to stick with one overall colour for the background. You can can't go wrong with aqua as a colour to accompany flowers I think.
In this painting I almost ended up with a few 'lost edges' (term for where the colour of the object and it's background are the same). I like the effect. The vase is almost like a water drop.


I've been taking a look on facebook at some of the work entered by other people so far, for the 'January 31 day #stradaeasel challenge' (same challenge I'm attempting). A lot of people have been painting outside... it's down to -15 degrees Celsius out there! Hat's off to those brave enough to take on the elements but I think I'll stick to painting inside!

(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord