Art & Inspiration from professional artist and instructor Pat Fiorello. Pat is known for her romantic landscape, garden and floral paintings in oil and watercolor. Her paintings often depict beautiful places like Italy and France. Pat teaches painting workshops in the U.S., Caribbean and Europe. She is passionate about inspiring others to include art in their life. Whether creating it or simply appreciating and enjoying it, there are so many ways that art elevates life!
Hydrangea Joy
16 x 20 Oil Painting
by Pat Fiorello
$1500
Been painting mostly delicate white flowers for a few weeks now, so was in the mood to get back to some vivid COLOR!
Many years ago I read something in an art book that stuck with me. The author said that every painting has to go thru an "ugly phase. " My interpretation of that is, each painting goes thru stages in it's development where it's not done yet and you wonder, "will this ever turn out"?
Some of my students hit this phase and get concerned and want to give up on a painting, but I remind them it's like baking a cake. If the recipe says bake for 45 minutes and you take it out after 20 minutes- of course it's not going to look like a very good cake. You need to keep pushing through and reserve judgment for later in the process. At least wait until the whole paper or canvas is covered. Before that it's simply too early to make an assessment because you are comparing shapes, colors and values to a lot of empty white space on your paper or canvas.
Below are some of the earlier phases of "Hydrangea Joy" . You can see there are definitely some ugly, even scary parts to push thru, especially when I paint with the transparent layer underneath. You have to go darker and more intense than necessary and from there you''ll reign it in. Initially the colors are so strong and garish that it can be frightening, but take a breath and continue on knowing that your shapes, colors, values and edges can be adjusted to turn something ugly into a thing of beauty.
Sparkling Daisies
8 x 10 oil painting
by Pat Fiorello
$300
Over the past 20 years, I have had the good fortune of studying with many talented artists/instructors. Every one had made a contribution to me. Whether I embraced their methods or did not connect with their methods, I always have learned something valuable. My attitude when attending a class or workshop is to be open, know there is something to be gained by the experience and then come back to my studio, try out what I've learned on my own and see what practices, materials and methods I want to incorporate into the way I paint.
I have at least 6 or 7 ways I can approach painting flowers. The one I use most often is to paint with a transparent underpainting and then build on top with opaques. Recently, I took a wonderful on-line program with Dennis Perrin. I enjoyed his method and clear instruction. However, I was curious what would happen if I combined some of the things I like about the transparent underpainting start with the "Value Map" block in suggested by Dennis. This start is different from how Dennis starts with a drawing( typically in red), but just out of curiosity I wanted to see how combining methods would work. I have used his full method and very much like it, but just as an experiment decided to mix things up.
Below is the initial photo that was my inspiration and steps along the process. I was happy to see that this combined approach worked nicely in the finished painting above, "Sparkling Daisies".
In the end there is no one "right " way to paint a painting. Just like there are many roads to arrive at the same destination, there are many ways to achieve your painting intention. The key is to learn, experiment and find a way that suits you best. I love "Alla Prima" (i.e. all at one, wet into wet) painting. It really suits my personality to jump in, be direct, see something thru to completion and then start on something new. It's exciting and energizing for me. I've tried glazing methods in both watercolor and oil. While I can execute them with fine results, I find the experience less invigorating and energizing for me. However, I can appreciate that others totally enjoy this slower, more methodical approach and can achieve beautiful results in that way too.
So the bottom line is be a sponge, take in various methods and input from your instructors, other artists and your own experiments. Then you get to say what works for you. And you may like to change it up depending on your mood, painting subject or size of just for the fun of it. But at the end of the day, how you got there may not be as important as where you wanted to go in the first place and did you fulfill on your intention.
Original reference photo which I cropped to eliminate some excess background, wanted a closer in viewpoint
Transparent Underpainting Start
Starting to map in the painting by building "Value Shapes", starting with darkest value and heading toward lightest value( lightest lights not in yet)
Further refinement
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Hydrangea Harmony
12 x 12 Oil Painting
by Pat Fiorello
$550
Here's my latest painting. A smaller version of one I've done before from a favorite photo ,but executed with a totally different process.
Below is the progression of steps from start to the finished painting above.
Initial drawing
On easel with photo
Start massing in the darkest shape
Then the next darkest shape
Then the next value, the shadows of the flowers
Added the background as another value slightly darker than the flower shadows
Finally massed in the lightest shapes
The original reference I was working from. Adjusted things a bit for compositional purposes.
First larger still life of the new year. Went to the flower wholesaler to get some lovely fresh roses on a cold winters day and set them up in my studio. The set up is pictured below.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Rose Study 1
8 x 10 Oil Painting by Pat Fiorello
$250
A little warm up study before starting on a larger rose painting this week.
Peony Passion 16 x 16 Oil Painting by Pat Fiorello
The first painting of 2016. "Peony Passion" is a painting I began in December, trying a new approach I'd been exposed to in a workshop. I did one flower in this manner in the workshop and a small study but wanted to try a larger painting just to reinforce the learning from the workshop.
Very different from my usual more direct, "alla prima" approach, this one was started with a board covered in grey gesso ( actually a gessoboard panel that is on top of a 2 inch deep frame for a gallery wrap type effect- you can buy these pre-made in the art supply store).
After that I painted out the darkest shapes with a black acrylic underpainting, then added the lightest shapes with a white acrylic underpainting. so the net effect is all the midtones are the original grey showing thru. This is sometimes referred to as a grisalle- a monochromatic value pattern underpainting.
Once that all dried, I started developing the flower starting with a petal and then moving to adjacent petals. The first pass was still not quite where I wanted it so I waited till the first layer was dried and then applied another layer of paint over the whole painting. I added a few leaves and suggestion of some others for a simple background and added a few touches of the stamen colors for a bit of detail.
I'm glad I went thru the effort to try this approach. I have to say it's not as much fun for me as the more direct method ( which requires less patience and more immediate gratification), but I do like the effect of light. It does force you to slow down and compare shapes of value relative to one another. So while I might not "convert" over to this approach, there are things I've learned that I believe I can integrate into a more direct approach. And it's always good to have options on how to approach the next painting challenge.
