“A bouquet of chrysanthemums.”
Flowers are beautiful subjects for a painting. Many great artists did lots of paintings with flowers. Some are more realistic, some impressionistic, abstract or even fauve. And I realised I didn’t do many still life paintings with flowers. Certainly none recently. As one of my friends noticed not so long ago, most of my still life paintings are of edible things, vegetables, fruits, cheeses and beverages. Hence, I decided to rectify this. For the start, I have chosen a little bouquet of chrysanthemums, yellow and white and I put them in a glass jar with a metal frame and a wooden hanger, probably a garden candle holder, which I bought a while ago from a gift shop at Kingston Lacy. Haven’t used it yet as a candle holder, but it looks quite good as a vase.
I painted alla prima over few hours, using a limited palette with three yellows, two browns, cobalt blue and white. I didn’t use medium, just turpentine to thin the paints. I used thicker paint than in my recent still life paintings, to show the brushstrokes more.
For the values I, again, used the B & W viewing filter. It is a great device and by using it I started to learn how to see better the values, without being distracted by the colours. I also painted it in a relatively dark environment, something I recently started doing.
So, this is my week 60 of the weekly paintings:
“A bouquet of chrysanthemums.”
Oil on linen.
24 X 30cm (10” X 12”).
