Garden favorites

Budding Roses 4x4 pastel, copyright 2012

Turning Koi 4x4 pastel, copyright 2012

These are the last two of the small pastels and they also happen to be my favorites.  Again and again I've tried to paint roses without much success.  For some reason portraying the intricacy of the layered petals eludes me so I decided to take a different route, focusing only on the buds.   This time it actually worked!

The red of the roses and the orange of the koi just seem to pop against the dark background.  Though it doesn't show up well in a photograph, the koi in particular seems to shimmer as it slips along the edges of the paper.  Finally I have a good grasp of how to use rather than fight the rough texture of the paper.  I think both of these are candidates for larger paintings.

Below are all eight of the paintings together.  In my etsy shop I am offering an option to purchase the paintings individually for $25 each or all eight of them for $175.  

Due to the Thanksgiving holiday here in the U.S., it may be a bit before I get back to posting, but rest assured, I have a few more paintings ready to show off, including more sky.  For those of you celebrating, have a good holiday, and keep safe!

Blue, red and pink

Blue Pot with Red and Pink Flowers 9x12 pastel, copyright 2012

In our front yard we are lucky enough to have a natural artisian spring.  Many years ago my husband's uncle dug it out and lined it with stone so that his grandmother could have flower beds around it.  Although few of her plantings remain, I've added plenty of my own in recent years.  The miniature rose was a Mother's Day gift  and the pink flowers are spiderwort, donated by a neighbor.  Both plants have gone a bit crazy this spring, overrunning their garden spot.

Yesterday I walked around the yard taking reference photos when it occurred to me that it was a perfect day for a bit of plein air painting - sunny and bright and not too hot.  I painted this pastel while waiting for the kids to get off the bus, then touched it up a bit this morning.

Miniature roses

Floating Miniature Roses 6x6 oil, copyright 2011

click to purchase this painting

On one of the last truly beautiful days of the season I picked the three best flowers off my miniature rose and set them floating in a little bowl.  Moving around to find the best shadows, I finally settled on the stone steps that go down into the bubbling spring we are fortunate to have in the front yard.  There is nothing quite like bright sunshine to make shadows and highlights and colors really pop, and that's what I decided to emphasize instead of trying to capture the details and the texture of the horn bowl and stone step.   

For some reason roses are always a struggle for me.  I'm not sure why, but the layers and layers of short, brightly colored petals give me fits.  It took a little bit of reworking, but I feel pretty good about these.  And I really feel like I've big improvements on capturing the shapes and shadows of rounded objects like the bowl.