Hydrangea Lesson in Oils

Hydrangea Lesson
9 x 12 oil painting
$395


Had a private student here in my studio this week wanting to learn how to paint flowers. This relatively straightforward approach which I first learned from Hedi Moran at the Scottsdale Artist's School is a good place to start. Block in shapes loosely with transparent colors, then build form with opaques. After the first stage, the painting looks pretty garish since you use only transparent colors and no white, but then as you move into the second phase things start to come together.

This is the method I share in my "Painting Flowers Alla Prima Workshop in Oils". The next workshop will be in March of 2017 at the Kudzu Art Zone in Norcross, GA.

Below are the steps along the way to the finished painting.

Peony Surprise

Peony Surprise
123 x 16 Oil Painting
by Pat Fiorello



Been away several weeks and happy to be getting back to my studio these past couple of days. To get "re-booted" I decided to treat myself to some special flowers from Cut Flowers a wholesaler in Atlanta.

I went in looking for white roses but to my surprise and delight they had peonies which I didn't expect to see this time of year (they can get them, but usually by special order).

Below are some of the steps start to finish as well as reference photos. The flowers changed a lot over 24 hours as you can see in the last shot.

Love, Laughter and Happily Ever After

Love, Laughter and Happily Ever After
12 x 12 Oil Painting
by Pat Fiorello

Here's my latest bridal bouquet painting commissioned by a young man in Iowa to give as a special gift to his wife for their first anniversary.

Here's what he shared after he surprised his wife with this painting:

"Pat, I gave my wife the painting and she was absolutely blown away by it.  She couldn’t believe the amount of detail in the painting and how accurate it was to her bouquet. She is excited to have it displayed in our home forever and have it be a constant reminder of our wedding day. She has continuously mentioned that her bouquet was one of her favorite parts of the entire wedding, so I am glad she now has something that can remind her of that forever.

 Again, I can’t thank you enough for helping making this 1^st anniversary very memorable for us".

I went through many photos from the wedding looking for the best view of the bouquet to serve as inspiration for the painting.  After seeing the photo's you almost feel like you were there for the wedding.  I really enjoy being part of creating a surprise gift for someone.

If you are interested in a bridal or anniversary gift for someone special, please contact me. You can learn more at http://patfiorello.com/wedding_bouquet.html.

Pomegranates in the Sun

Pomegranates in the Sun
9 x 12 Watercolor

Experimented with a different approach for this watercolor to simplify the complexity of all those leaves. Laid warm colors in wet into wet. While the paint was still wet started bringing in some suggestion of the foliage with softer edges, then let things dry and added a few hard edges where needed.  Towards the end it got more abstract, forgetting about the leaves and just adding dark accents where needed. A fun and loose approach.