This month it was my turn to pick the subject and taking pity on Mick www.thepaintingstruggle.blogspot.com/ I selected a photograph of a group of Irises. Rather than one single large bloom I picked a group of flowers linked together in a sort of inverted v shape. The background is very busy - the whole scene is - which posed another problem.
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Out of interest here is a monochrome photograph of the same subject - a wide range of values.
13" x 11" Waterford 140lb (300gsm) Not
This is my first version. I wasn't entirely happy with as I felt it was tending to overworking, so decided to do a second one with a more simpler approach. Should I have had more soft edges? Too heavy handed?
15" x 11" Fabriano Artistico 90lb (200gsm) not
This is a simplified softer approach. I realise it may be said the flowers are floating on air as I have just hinted at the stems. This was deliberate as I keep thinking the background of the first painting is too heavy.
The colours used in both paintings were similar - as you might expect. The dark petals are a mixture of Indigo (DS) and Quinacridone Purple (DS PV255) - possibly also some Prussian Blue (Graham PB27). The orange is Schminke Translucent Orange (PO71). Other colours are Permanent Magenta (Rowney PV19), and Cerulean Blue. The background greens are combinations of Sap Green (DS), Green-Gold (Rowney PY129) and Hookers Green (Graham). There is also some diluted transparent orange. I'm not sure which I prefer.
It proved a fairly tough challenge, with a very busy subject, and considering I haven't previously done anything similar felt I'd made a reasonable stab at it, although you can always do better and that certainly applies here. When painting I often think to myself how would such and such (my favourite artists) handle this subject?