Flower Study 41- Flowing Roses, Wedding Flowers

Flower Study #41
Flowing Roses
9 x 12
Oil Painting on Panel
by Pat Fiorello



I had an arrangement of flowers that  was an unusual project in my flower design class. The last day of class we did flowers for a wedding. The full deal- bouquets, altar flowers, even flowers to decorate a gazebo which we had set up in the classroom. We also made" pew markers" -flowers that go on the aisle in a church for a wedding. The arrangement was one sided so that it could flatly rest against the side of a pew. I liked the color harmonies of subtle pinks and off whites, so I decided to do a study of this flower grouping.
 Th nature of it was flowing, so I decided to use this as an opportunity to try to keep it really loose and capture a feeling of energy and movement.

Here is the photo of the inspiration, as well as some other fun photo's from our last day of class creating the wedding flower arrangements.

A large arrangement suitable for the altar at a wedding

Here I am in the gazebo we decorated

The final day of flower design class, my 5 classmates, and I staged flowers for an entire wedding

I'm working on a larger painting of the larger altar piece in the urn and will post that later this week.

Flower Study #39

Flower Study #39
6 x 6
Oil Painting on Panel
by Pat Fiorello
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A quick study of a petite vase with a large rose, spray roses and white stock

Flower Study #36 Roses & Spider Mum

Flower Study  36

6 x 8

Oil Painting on Panel

by Pat Fiorello

This is a tiny still life, just trying to capture the essence of a vase of loosely arranged flowers featuring roses and a large spider mum. The mums can be a challenge since they have so many petals, so I tried to simplify that without losing the characteristic feeling of the flower.

Flower Study #35- Roses, Hydrangeas & Larkspur- 3 arrangements

Flower Study #35
Roses, Hydrangea, Larkspur
12 x 12



This paintings was inspired by one of my arrangements from my flower design class . Last week we took a selections of the same flowers- roses, lilies, larkspur, hydrangeas and some various foliage and 2 made 3 different arrangements. One was in a tall vase, one in a short vase and one in a basket. The photo's of the arrangements are below. One point of the exercise was to show how with the same flower materials we could make different arrangmetns that all had a different feel. The small one was my favorite so I started with that one as a painting subject.

Flower Study #34 Roses & Hydrangeas

Flower Study #34
Roses & Hydrangeas
6 x 6 Oil Painting on Panel
by Pat Fiorello

$100

Tried a little more contemporary asymmetrical design today. Good opportunity to work on suggesting a grouping of roses.

Flower Study # 31 Yellow Roses

Flower Study #31
Yellow Roses
6 x 6
Oil Painting on Panel
by Pat Fiorello




Had a few yellow roses left over from last weeks flower arranging class, so chose those for today's study.

Flower Study #30- Roses & Friends

Here's a small study I started a couple of weeks ago. Was having a hard time with it that day and scraped it down several times, but decided to give it another try this week. Did most of it with a palette knife to try out a different texture and look.

Flower Study #30
Roses & Friends
6 x 8
Oil Painting on Panel
by Pat Fiorello

Flower Study 19 Red Rose Blue Willow

Red Rose Blue Willow
12 x 12
Oil Painting

This is a larger version of the study I did a week or so ago from the still life set up in the Robert Johnson workshop I recently took at the Easton Studio and School  in Easton Maryland. The  flowers were good practice as part of my ongoing flower study challenge but actually the Blue Willow sugar bowl was the most fun to paint. You are always straddling a fine line between including enough detail to suggest reality, but not so much to be precisely literal. It's also always amazing that you can create the illusion of a 3 dimensional object on a 2 dimensional canvas.

 Painting the container requires the same approach as the flowers- get the big shape first,  then describe the form ( by depicting light and shadow) and after that is established you can get to the decoration or small details.

Flower Study #15 & 16

 If you have been following my blog, you know hat I am currently working on a series of 50 floral studies between now and the end of Sept. so every day or so, I am doing a small study to practice floral shapes, colors etc..  Some are hits and some are misses- but there is something to learn from each study. Here's the next in the series of floral studies- working on a  single pink rose. It turned out okay but not necessarily my favorite or best effort. So I looked to see what might be missing to improve on the next one.

Flower Study 15
Pink Rose 6 x 8 Oil Painting




Many artists learn by studying the masters.  The masters are often considered artists of centuries ago, but there are modern masters among us today. So I looked to see who had done some amazing roses and found an artist I really liked - Qiang Huang. I  copied  one of his works for  study #16 just as an exercise for my own personal learning ( not to sell since he has the copyright on this image) . By doing this I coud see several things that made the difference- more dramatic lighting ( dark vs light areas), bolder, more confident brushstrokes and bigger specific shapes. Some good lessons to take into the next round of studies.

 I 

Flower Study #16
6 x 8 Oil Painting
NFS

 

Flower Study #14

Flower Study #14
Rose Trio
8 x 10
Oil Painting on Panel
by Pat Fiorello


Bid Here Now


Had a beautiful bouquet of pink roses so made up a little still life of 3 roses and grapes with a silver cup.

Flower Study #12 Red Rose in Oriental Bowl

Flower Study 12
Red Rose in Oriental Bowl
Oil Painting on Panel by Pat Fiorello
6 x 6

Bid Here Now

Another  in the series of flower studies.  The flower was fun to do , but I especially had fun with suggesting the design on the pot.

Flower Study #9 Rose

Here's the latest painting in my flower studies series. I'm not sure of the name of this type of rose, but it was a challenge to paint,. There are so many layers of petals to simplify, yet  its essence is complex. How do you add enough to make ti feel like this type of flower, yet not get bogged down in every precise petal.That seems to be (one of) the constant artists challenge- being selective- deciding what to include and what to edit out.

Some steps along the way are shown below.

Flower Study #9 Rose
Oil Painting on Panel
 6 x 8
$200

This was the reference photo I started with

My initial block in

Adding the background

Starting to distinguish form and petals on the way to the finished study ( first image above)

Flower Study #8- Roses & Lilacs

Roses & Lilacs
6 x 8
Oil Painting on Panel
by Pat Fiorello
$200

I wanted to do some further
 study on yellow roses and added the lilacs as a nice complementary color.

Flower Study 7- Yellow and White Roses

Three Roses
Oil Painting on panel by Pat Fiorello
6 x 8
$200

This study was based on a photo I took at a rose garden in Atlanta a few years back,. Knew I wanted to paint it someday and today was finally the day.

Painting Challenge #2 Red Roses & Queen Anne's Lace

 Here's study 2 of the 50 flowers painting challenge:

Red Roses & Queen Anne's Lace
Oil Painting by Pat Fiorello
6 x 8
$200

It's fresh off the easel so still wet (sorry for the glare on the photo). These were a couple of the roses which were part one of the floral arrangements I did at the workshop at Halls School of Flower Design last weekend.

 I used dark transparent colors-  e.g. Alizarin plus a touch of Ultramarine Blue and/or Violet for the areas of the flowers in shadow and  then the more opaque Cadmium Red Light for the lit side. The value contrast is more pronounced in the actual painting than it appears in the photo of the painting here. 

 With flowers (as in most of what I paint), I try simplify, capturing the major shapes and values without obsessing too much on getting every detail exact. There's always a fine line between getting enough detail to have it read with some measure of authenticity ( and, for example, to be this particular rose as opposed to a generic rose) but not going overboard on getting every exact detail which then becomes a copy of the photo. I'm learning over time that a big part of our job as artists is to edit. We must decide what we think is essential and what the painting can do without and still work.  "Artistic license" is not only something that is the artist's prerogative, but are choices we must consciously make on what to emphasize, minimize,  include or  delete altogether.

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!

Viewing Art is Like Being in Love

 

Red Rose Study

Oil Painting by Pat Fiorello

6 x 8

I'd like to share an interesting article on the effects of viewing art. Brain chemistry research has shown it's similar to the feelings of falling in love. No wonder we artists and art lovers are so passionate.
Click here to link to the article:        Viewing Art is Like Being in Love

Plein Air Painting at Smith- Gilbert Gardens

 Thursday and Friday of this week I participated in a plein air painting event at the Smith Gilbert Gardens in Kennesaw , GA. It was my first time there. There were about 40 other artists painting at the same time and at the end of the 2 days we were each asked to frame and submit 2 paintings for a show at the garden. The garden is the best kept secret in Georgia. Apparently it was a private home and garden and has been  recently made into a public garden( for a small admission of $7). There are 16 acres of gardens, about 30 statues and lots and lots of flowers- Amazing roses and irises were available this week.

Today I tried to tackle roses in the garden, keeping my eye on simplifying the scene, capturing just the essence and feel of it rather than worrying about being exact. Rather than approach it as a landscape,  treated it as I would a still life- only with outdoor light. I picked out a couple of roses as my main focus and then  added other flowers from here and there as needed for the composition.

 Here is the unfolding of the painting- start to finish today...

Initial block in of the flowers and a few specific leaves- only transparent paints

 

Block in of background added in

Opaque paint added, brushstrokes to add form

 Final painting still on the easel

Framed for tonight's show

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Make an Art Date- Part II

Spring Bouquet

Oil Painting by Pat Fiorello

After spending the past 2 days working on a commission painting, I had time today to finish the painting I started on Tuesday ( see blogpost on 4/13/11) when I had my painting date with my friend Valee.

  The finished piece is above.It was fun and thank you Valee for supplying the beautiful flowers. I love the combination of yellow, purple and green and I will remember our fun time painting together whenever I see this painting.

Rose Study

                                                    
                                                          Valentine's Day
                                                                9 x 12
                                                   Oil Painting by Pat Fiorello


You don't have to set your sights on completing a major painting each time you get into the studio. Sometimes it's a nice break to simplify something and do a quick study. I was lucky enough to get a bouquet of 2 dozen beautiful roses from my husband this Valentines' Day. Instead of trying to tackle the whole bouquet of 24 flowers, I pulled out 3 roses, arranged them with a little device I have that allows me to clip the flowers in various positions ( I think I got it years ago for a botanical illustration class I once took). I set the flower grouping on a simple cloth, put a light on it and painted the study shown above. It was a good practice to  focus on the roses without necessarily adding the complexity of a more elaborate still life set up. Plus I have a remembrance of this Valentine's day I can keep long after the real flowers are gone.

                                         Photo's of set up for Valentine's Day study