It wasn’t until I finished today’s experiment that I thought of the real theme for this post.  Previously I had painted a sketch of two California Poppies. One in full face, the other in a profile, like a mug shot, I suppose.

Today I wanted to revisit the poppy, as they have a stunning color at which I enjoy looking. There were several poppies in my photo of a field of them, that I wanted to paint. I thought there was something about their arrangement that was pleasing as well.

Today’s experiment:

The theme of today’s experiment is an observation about an approach to painting a group of subjects vs. one or two subjects. I will discuss this after I describe the genesis of today’s study.

I drew the original outlines from the photograph I mentioned above. The next step was to paint them with cadmium yell0w pale, which is a yellowish orange. I thought this would be a good start to build up the golden oranges that I hoped to achieve in the flowers.

Actually, I used other yellows in the above sketch including: Gamboge and English Yellow.

The next step was to enhance the shadowy oranges, for which I used Rose Madder Genuine at first. After that I used different reds, such as Quinacridone  Red and Alizarine Crimson.

Next I used the great evener-outer, lemon yellow, to unify the patches of color. This seemed to work, despite the fact that lemon yellow is on the greenish side.

You might notice the stems of the flowers and a little foliage, in addition to an actual orange pigment used on the bottom left hand flower.

To complete the sketch, I touched up some of the petals with Cadmium Orange and included more foliage and faint orange spots at the top of the paper to represent the other flowers in the field.

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I mentioned a the start that the theme of today’s post came to me after I finished the study. The reason for this is tied to yesterday’s blog, where my inspiration came directly from my interaction with a single leaf. I had to come inside and make something, when I saw the image of that fig leaf.

Today was more of an experiment in trying to attain the correct coloration rather than design.  Although I scribbled a bit of the foliage in at the bottom when I first drew the flowers, the orange bits at the top were put in at the last moment.

My opinion of the piece went from, “Nice colors of flowers,” to “Man, that doesn’t look like anyone put any thought into this picture.”

Although my painting from yesterday did not look anything like the actual fig leaf, from which it was copied, it was an attempt to re-create my impression of it, perhaps even to “make visible” (a theme I often borrow from Paul Klee) my inner feelings about what had so impressed me by the light shining on that fig leaf.

So the lesson I learned is: make use of nature’s design when observing one still-life subject; if there is no obvious natural design when many objects are in the scene, use my own sensibility to abstract the salient features into my own design. It is also important not to leave design for last, or change it without reason.