Tuesday, March 29, 2011

St. Paddy's Blooms



I'm a little late for St. Paddy's day, but I did have this still life set up around that time, with the green backround, and I painted it but wasn't happy with it. There wasn't enough color with just the yellow tulips and the green. So even tho the flowers are long gone, I went in and added the cherry, which I think gives it a nice little pop of color, to contrast all the green. I basically ended up repainting most of it because its weird to just add one element that is a totally different color. Somehow it changes the game and I had revise most of the the colors so everything played nicely together. Its much better to get the still life elements right to begin with rather than recreate the wheel colorwise after the fact. Next time I'll slow down and analyze my setup better before jumping into the paint.

St. Paddy's Blooms
6x6" oil on canvas

5 comments:

Denise Rose said...

I love it with the cherry! The cherry reflection in the cup is also just fabulous! You are right about the composition thing and that seems to be the hardest part for me so far in still life painting.

Jerry Stocks said...

Everything you said was echoed by Carol Marine on the talk radio show today. She said that if you change one little thing you usually have to end up changing everything. Despite the change, this is a great painting.

Patti Mollica said...

interesting! yes, its true - best to get that still life set up correctly first time around. Sometimes its easy to forget to analyze the dominant/middle and "smidge" values and color balance because the still life looks good. but then when you finish and look at it and know there is something "off", thats when i want to kick myself for rushing...
the only problem about going back into the painting and sort of starting over is that layer of semi-dry paint that can create a weird texture which does not go with the new brush strokes... i hate that. live and learn... thanks guys for your nice comments :-)

Carolyn Finnell said...

yup, I just mentally took the cherry out and (mentally) put it back. much better with. Great job on the reflection.

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