Cosmos

Cosmos
9 x 12 Oil Painting
by Pat Fiorello
$425

Recently visited a lavender farm in North GA. They also had a lovely colorful field of cosmos.

I decided to give it a try in a painting. It was a very complex field so there was a challenge to simplify, yet not lose part of the essence of this type of field that is inherently busy.

I started laying in the dark background and different greens of a lighter value that other foliage would be laid on top of at later stages.  I had toned the canvas with a light application of thinned transparent oxide red and viridian. I then took a paper towel and q tips soaked in gamsol (solvent) and lifted out where the flowers of pure color would go. So below is where I started to work on the flowers. Then it was a process of putting down shapes of color (that's what painting is) and refining and then coming on top of paint with lines, dots and dashes to suggest the busy-ness of the field.