Spray Roses

Spray Roses
12 x 16 oil painting
by Pat Fiorello

I have 3 general approaches for starting a painting and vary them based on my intention for the painting, the needs of the subject matter, or sometimes just the mood I'm in.    Sometimes I do a hybrid approach to combine the best of the methods. So there is no particular formula that is right. There are countless ways to create a painting.

For this one I decided to try an approach that I use least- that is to paint in  midtones and dark all over the canvas and then wipe out where my lighter flower shapes will be.  

I had these spray roses as subject. Didn't want to have them in the vase, but wanted to give more of a "gardeny" feel.

Here's the painting blocked in and then with the light shapes wiped out.

  

Then started to tone the shadow areas of the light flowers, add lights and further refine shapes.

I purposely did not want to spell out an exact rendering of each flower, but developed what I wanted as the center of interest further and left other areas just suggested.