Floral Friends

Floral Friends
16 x 20 Oil Painting
by Pat Fiorello
$1500

Recently found this beautiful green vase on ebay (a great place to find still life props by the way) and decided to create a still life set up around it. It was late one evening and I wasn't able to get the flowers I needed so instead worked with some silk flowers I have and sometimes use for "stand -ins".  I had some peonies, then added roses and hydrangeas all in the white/ivory family.

 Below is a photo of the initial set up. As I went along, I added and modified some shapes to fill up more of the space.

 I have to say it was much more challenging to paint from the silk flowers, because although the general shapes and value relationships worked fine, you lose the subtle color notes in the shadows. After a couple of days of work on this, I still was not satisfied. I put it aside for a few days and then came back today and added some more color notes to liven it up a bit. Anxious to get back to working from some live flowers after this experience.