Painting Challenge #2 Red Roses & Queen Anne's Lace

 Here's study 2 of the 50 flowers painting challenge:

Red Roses & Queen Anne's Lace
Oil Painting by Pat Fiorello
6 x 8
$200

It's fresh off the easel so still wet (sorry for the glare on the photo). These were a couple of the roses which were part one of the floral arrangements I did at the workshop at Halls School of Flower Design last weekend.

 I used dark transparent colors-  e.g. Alizarin plus a touch of Ultramarine Blue and/or Violet for the areas of the flowers in shadow and  then the more opaque Cadmium Red Light for the lit side. The value contrast is more pronounced in the actual painting than it appears in the photo of the painting here. 

 With flowers (as in most of what I paint), I try simplify, capturing the major shapes and values without obsessing too much on getting every detail exact. There's always a fine line between getting enough detail to have it read with some measure of authenticity ( and, for example, to be this particular rose as opposed to a generic rose) but not going overboard on getting every exact detail which then becomes a copy of the photo. I'm learning over time that a big part of our job as artists is to edit. We must decide what we think is essential and what the painting can do without and still work.  "Artistic license" is not only something that is the artist's prerogative, but are choices we must consciously make on what to emphasize, minimize,  include or  delete altogether.