It’s Springtime !
Springtime is finally here… well, sort of. It’s been pretty cold here in the last couple of weeks but the mild days are coming. The starlings are back so that’s a good sign. – For those that don’t know, only the strongest starlings stay the whole winter to watch their territory while the rest of the flock goes a little further South – But we can expect more cold ahead until the American robins are back. When those guys are back, that’s a sure sign of springtime. You see, them robins like to eat worms and they’re pretty good worm hunters too. You can see them hoping around, tilting their heads to listen closely and when they hear something, SNAP! They pick the worm out of the earth. They never fail.
White Philadelphus Flowers (March 22 2009)
Anyway. Waiting for the robins return, I’m finishing the poinsettia painting, which you can see here, and I’ve picked up on the White Philadelphus Flowers painting, which I had put aside last fall. At last, I began working on the petals, starting with the ones at the bottom – It’s a little bit hard to see what I mean so I’ve made a close-up shot of just the bottom petals – I began that painting with a quick and very thin under-painting just to set the shades/values approximately.
Bottom flower petals (details)
Those flowers are not white, well they are but I mean the way the foliage, the flowers and petals interact, casting shadows and refracting light gives a very wide array of tints that aren’t white at all. The bottom (darkest) petals are a greenish grey. Some are a little lighter; bluish grey but still with a tad of green. The greys aren’t exactly grey either; there’s a tad of Van Dyke brown in there. Here’s the photo that I’m working from:
Photo that I'm working from.
As we progress higher, the lighter petals (not done yet) contain some blue hues, some yellow and even some pink – Only a few spots are pure white – Because linseed oil tends to yellow when drying, for that painting I use exclusively some huile d’œillette (poppy seed oil) from the beginning. It’s more expensive but I think it will be well worth it – Also, poppy seed oil takes longer to dry. That’s an advantage I find, as the paint remain malleable for longer and I really like to paint wet on wet, especially for smoothening edges.
