Flower Study #28- More Complex Floral Design-Classic Urn

I'm moving along in my flower design class and finished the week with a more complex arrangement that I decided to paint this weekend. A key point I'm learning in the class is to have a mass of weight lower in the arrangement for balance and stability and then use the lighter weight foliage for movement and texture. Many of the design principles make sense as I relate them to how I would think about composition of a painting. Since this was more complex than most of my earlier studies, and I really wanted an opportunity to work on brushwork for the foliage, I decided to do it closer to life size and did a 16 x 20 painting.

Here's the finished painting  (still a bit wet, so sorry about the glare in the photo):

Flower Study #29
Classic Urn
16 x 20 Oil Painting on Panel
by Pat Fiorello


Here was the actual floral arrangement I made after my class this week which I used as a model for the painting:

I was pretty pleased with how both the arrangement and the painting turned out. It was interesting to paint something else I had already created. I definitely had a deeper sense of knowing the flowers and foliage, having handled them to make the arrangement and also knowing why I put things where I did in the arrangement reinforced decisions about where to place things in the painting composition.

If I were to do it again, one thing I might do differently is add more dark, cooler leaves first then, lay more light leaves over them to add a bit more depth. But overall, it was a fun exercise on 2 levels- creating the arrangement and creating the painting.

Many thanks for my floral design instructor John Grady Burns for letting me borrow his gorgeous urn and for his wonderful instruction. But most of all for sharing his passion for beauty and flowers.

Painting Challenge - 50 Flowers

Inspired by my recent flower design workshop (see previous post on 6/25), I have decided to take on a painting challenge to focus my learning over the next 3 months. I committed to doing a series of 50 painting studies of flowers between now and the end of September. I'm calling this challenge "The Art of Learning".  I have found before that an intensive focus on a particular subject can really accelerate the learning curve and creating a game keeps it fun. I'll be sharing my learnings along the way, so if you'd like to see how things unfold, feel free to "follow" this blog or sign up for an automatic email sending you new posts as they occur (ways to sign up for either options are on the right of this blog).

Study 1 Peach Roses
Oil Painting by Pat Fiorello
8 x 10
$200

Above is the first of the challenges using a few of the roses which were still in good shape from Saturday's class. I laid them on a table in my easel under a light for a simple set up. I will try to paint from life as much as possible, but might use some photo's along the way too. The unusual peachy color was more challenging than expected. I changed the background several times, (see photo and earlier versions below)  but found a more neutral background definitely helped the roses appear more colorful. The brighter green option competed and left the flowers looking duller. 1 down, 49 to go!

Flower Painting Class

This was the last session of the Painting Flowers- Loose, Fresh & Easy class I teach in Atlanta.

We had a great class of 15 painters. We paint each week from flowers the students bring in. It's fun to have a room filled with artists happily at work surrounded by colorful  flowers. 

Here are some of the students at work.

  Have a great summer and see you again in the fall.

For those who don't want to wait till then, I have added a new one day workshop on June 14th at the 

Smith Gilbert Gardens in Kennesaw GA. It will be a plein air painting workshop designed especially for those who might be new or less experienced at painting outdoors. I shared about the gardens on an earlier blog post (May 6).   If interested, please contact me at patfiorello@aol.com

Mixing Natural Greens

Color chart for practicing Natural Greens

If you're an artist. like me who loves painting florals and/or landscapes , you have to make peace with the color green. It is often the most challenging color to handle. Many of the paints in tubes like Viridian, Winsor Green, Pthalo green( which is the same as Winsor), Hookers Green are much too cold to accurately depict natural looking greens. So often artists avoid these colors. Of course you could always mix your blues and yellows to get a range of greens, but there are so many nuances of greens in nature, it's a good idea to have every tool at your disposal.

 My tip is to take the tube greens and add a warmer color to them to warm them up.You can add almost anything- yellow, orange, red, burnt siena, alizarin crimson, even violet, to warm up a "too cold" green. The chart shown here is an exercise I do with my students where we mix a range of greens starting with Thalo green to come up with warmer greens on the right( vs the top thalo green which is right out of the tube). You can get everything from a bright spring or tropical green to a deep, rich evergreen tree type of green depending on what you mix into it.

 I recently did a quick demo of this for a watercolor class I was teaching. You can view it at
http://youtu.be/GObTq57wDQI

Go out and enjoy painting some spring greens this week and give it a try!

Nature's Wonder

Providence Canyon, Georgia

These photo's may surprise you. They are not from the southwest U.S., but are from south Georgia.  

Yesterday,  my husband and I decided to go for a drive. We came upon Providence Canyon State Park near Lumpkin GA.  It's like our own (very) miniature grand canyon here on the east coast. Apparently, this developed due to farming practices during the cotton growing days when the farmers depleted the land and plowed down the sides of hills. Over time the land eroded and these canyons arose.

I had no idea there were landscapes like this in this part of the country.  So as the beautiful weather is upon us, it's great time to do a little exploring. Sometimes you find surprises in your own backyard. 

An Oasis in the City

Yesterday, I took an hour out of my day to visit the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. What always strikes me when I'm there is how wonderful it feels to be surrounded by nature - and then I look up and see the skyline right nearby- it's like an oasis of beauty and serenity right in the heart of the city.

I don't know where you live, but chances are there is someplace like this near you. If you haven't been there for awhile ( or maybe ever) now's a great time to go. Enjoy the aliveness and energy of all the new spring plants popping up and give yourself the wonderful calming benefits that nature can provide.

And who knows you might find some inspiration for your next painting, decorating project or even come up with a new solution to a problem that's been bothering you by having a change of scenery and new view on things.

Painting from Nature

Spring is upon us, ( I promise it's coming for those of you in the Northeast)  so it's an especially nice time of year to go outside and paint from nature.

Next weekend, I'll be taking a group of artists out to paint on location at Callaway Gardens in Georgia where I have been teaching for a number of years. If you've never been there, it's a wonderful huge garden and park that the Callaway family graciously created for families to enjoy leisure time together in nature. I took this from their website www.callawaygardens.com:   Open since 1952, Callaway Gardens is the centerpiece of 13,000 acres nestled in the southernmost foothills of the Appalachians.  Founder Cason Jewell Callaway longed for a place where man and nature could abide together for the good of both, and now more than half a century later, his retreat continues to offer solace, inspiration and discovery for all who come here.

 While it's a wonderful place year round, April is prime time at Callaway- it's azalea time!

Each year when I return, I get reunited with the feeling of peacefulness of being surrounded by nature. As soon as I drive in the gates, it's as if my body has had a huge sigh of relief. It's only about an hour and a half from Atlanta, but you feel a world away. Being outside painting on a beautiful day, in the midst of natural beauty is a really pleasurable experience.

 If it's been awhile since you've been outside to paint, it might be time to get that easel out and enjoy the springtime!

Keep posted. I'll share  updates from the workshop next weekend.