Just Got back from Ireland and took a small collection of work over to Rolfs Country House where I have been selling in their restaurant and cafe for years. (Not very good iphone pics)
It works for me, I sold 3 paintings in the first weekend!
As recommended by Richard Schmid in ‘Alla Prima’, I have been doing the colour swatch lessons in order to see what subtleties you can get by careful colour mixing. I used some small canvas boards and cut a template from some scrap paper and followed his advice to mix methodically. So for instance lemon yellow with ultramarine blue is not the same two mixes on each palette as you major in one of the colours and add less of the other, then add white almost down to pure white in five stages. I have found it enormously helpful with the white roses as well as things like brass – when you analyze old brass its actually quite greenish. Many more surprises to come I think. (Look at that horrible weather outside my studio)
Bristol is famous for its blue glass and I keep an (empty) bottle with my props as it makes such a lovely colour contrast to nature. Here I’ve used those roses again one more time (I think I’m going to hang a whole part of the restaurant/gallery in Ireland with roses this time – I’ll take some photos next week). Anyway I threw the roses across a silver platter and just stood the bottle as a complementary colour, (BTW its quite difficult to ‘throw’ flowers down – composition is another subject…)
15″ x 18″ oil on linen
When you get blustery weather over West Cork, the sea and sky can be extremely dramatic as most Atlantic coasts are. You never know what the weather will be like so I’m not making any presumptions for next week!
6″x 6″ oil on board
Pinterest is gaining publicity and popularity though there have been some issues about copyright. I am more than happy for anyone to pin any of my paintings on their Pinterest boards (access via the dropdown network button list under each post) as long as I am credited but of course any of our featured artists may feel differently so please go to their own blogs to check out their preferences.
Heres a link to a recent and helpful discussion about it from Artists Helping Artists blog radio
Laurie Moses (blog owner)
Heres a much better version of the painting, I first did a quick photo of this with my iphone and it was blurred and over exposed (see the image below).
This time I scanned the painting in four sections on my A4 scanner and then photomerged it and colour adjusted in Photoshop. It’s quite different however good phone cameras are!
As I’m not going to have much more time for the paintings to dry before I ship them, I’m using white alkyd on these linen panels. I let a little of the linen show through most noticably in the apple. I’m pleased with the apple, I stopped myself overworking it.
I love this old pitcher, I picked it up for 50p in a charity shop – its always worth a quick look in these shops, this one is old brass and not a modern repro!
15″ x 18″ oil on stretched linen
Another one to take to the gallery in Ireland, I painted this on fine linen which is a lovely support, but I ended up darkening the background so much that the linen doesn’t show through anywhere. As I started to loosen up the flowers they reminded me of those beautiful glowing glazes of the old Victorian tiles. Thats why I darkened the background with umber and prussian blue – to make the petals look almost luminous!
oil on linen 50cm x 20cm
I know it looks like I’m flipping back and forth between subject matter but actually as the roses are done from life I have to paint them whilst they are still fresh. Slipping in a little abstract landscape between rose bouquets whilst one bunch goes over and I’m waiting for the next ones to open a little keeps the painting going! Also I’ve used a cut off of MDF to which I have applied 3 layers of gesso as I wanted a smoother surface this time!
6″ x 6″ oil on gessoed board
I changed the colour of the purples in this one three times before I was happy. First they were TOO purple ( I used too much pure Alizarin) so then I knocked them back with some Prussian Blue, but then I thought it looked ‘dead so I put some purple madder back in. Thats what’s great about oil paint, just push it around, wipe it off or paint over it!!!
6″ x 6″ oil on board
Back after an Easter break, I feel an urge to try some roses again, I really want to paint them like I paint my landscapes, loose and blurred but with some sharp palette knife work too. I put this rose in front of a silver tankard which reflects warmth from the studio contrasting with all the cool colours. The whole set up is lit by a daylight bulb within a darkly draped box.
6″ x 6″, oil on canvas board