Garden Fantasy

Garden Fantasy
9 x 12 Oil Painting
by Pat Fiorello
 $425

Mostly I paint from still life set ups, on location or even photo's or a group of photos, but occasionally I just like to make something up from my imagination.

After 25 years or painting, there are certain subjects I've painted over and over- flowers, urns, landscapes, so I feel fairly comfortable bringing that experience to create not what I see but what I would like to see.

I started with a rough idea of a composition in pencil, very loosely sketched, then brought that to a value sketch.  I started by massing in the urn shape and then just built the bouquet inside as I would create an actual physical floral arrangement, placing some of the star flowers (the big garden roses), then adding line flowers and vines for movement and some more delicate shapes contrasting the larger solid flowers. As I moved along, I decided it would be an outdoor scene so added some darks to suggest foliage in the background, but also added a strip of lighter green as sunlit grass to suggest a plane change to the flat ground behind the urn.   That wasn't in the original plan but felt right at the time so I went with it. The plan is just a starting point and can be changed at any point if a better idea comes along.

The result was Garden Fantasy shown above.

Quiet Moments

Quiet Moments
16 x 16 Oil Painting
 $1250


Every once in awhile I have a painting that has potential, but just doesn't turn out as I'd expected. Sometimes I just toss them out, but this one was a larger one that I scraped off with a palette knife. It has been hanging around my studio, unfinished, for over a year.

This week I decided to tackle it again. Looking at what the problems were with the original, I decided I wanted more atmosphere, some more contrast of hard vs. soft edges and to make the flowers a bit smaller so there would be more breathing room around them. The original background was a warm neutral and I decide to go a little  cooler/grayer and less towards brown.

I "oiled out" the canvas with walnut oil and then approached it as if it were a blank canvas, reestablishing where I wanted the shadows and proceeding from there.

I'm glad I saved the panel to revisit this painting. Much happier the 2nd time around!

Original painting scraped down with a palette knife

Garden Romance

"Garden Romance"
16 x 16 oil painting

This painting has a beautiful story behind it. You may recognize it as the iconic bridge at Monet's Garden in Giverny, France.  But to the new owners of this painting, it has much more personal significance. I created it as a wedding gift for a friend of mine, Charles Needle. He's a nature photographer and leads workshops all around the world.

Back in about late 2006, we spoke about the possibility of teaching workshops in Monet's Garden. Shortly thereafter, he started teaching photography workshops there and I  began teaching painting workshops there too. On one of his workshops, he met Missy, a photography student. They became friends and over time evolved into a deeper relationship.

Last year, Charles arranged to propose marriage to Missy on Monet's bridge- an inspired and romantic gesture, commemorating where it all began for them. This week, I am honored to attend their wedding. I created this painting as a gift for Charles and Missy, so that each day in their home they would have a visible reminder of their love story.

 Congratulations Charles & Missy and may you live happily ever after!