1 First Tulip

[Susan]

Love the curves and the colour of your tulip Anita, it's really beautiful, looks almost velvety, and makes me want to sniff it... wonderful... 

[smokie55]

Thank you so much for the input Lucie. I have been having a hard time with these acrylics. Yesterday I was painting in the afternoon. I was having to add spritz's of water every minute or so to keep my paints wet enough to work. The heat and dry here in Texas right now are really bad. My A/C ran nonstop for the three hours I painted trying to cool the house.

My flower is really more orange than it looks. I used that base color to do my background and it came out really bad peach color. Even if I stayed in the warm tones I think I will use a more red/orange color. That peach color is just not appealing.

I think changing to a blue-grey, it will change the overall look. I kind of want to do it just as an experiment to see how much a complete opposite color will change the over all. Either way the peach is going, going, gone.

I plan to hit the store today and get some glaze so i can help my dry times. I will take your advice on the washes when I get some glaze. I lost the brightest highlight on the front left petal when it dried. It is reall flattened out now.

I will post pics when the changes are made.

Thanks to all for the help. Love to learn.

And Anita your flower is wonderful, it has awesome texture and looks alive. Great job.

[anita]

Thanks for all your welcomes and encouraging comments.  I have only been painting a few months and am so glad I found this site... I've learned loads in just a week or two allready :-)   

Anita

[Val]

Take all the time you need.... have a  on me. Its not like I'm going anywhere without my computer! You'll be proud...I think I've just discovered a new colour for mud. Trying to do a painting with a 3 colour palette. (w/c) A decent brown is tough to get.  Lloyd says if I keep sticking my tongue out its liable to become part of the picture! 

[patindaytona]

Thank you Nolan for the notification. I watched it again today and followed along on the tulip. I got the tulip done except for the leaves yet. And I want to touch up things near completion here and there. I did follow the shading technique, but I ended up "un-doing" an area or two such as the top right petal curve. I had to dip into some yellow even to lighten again. In other words I backtracked. But at least I knew the effect I was after. The most important thing I learned here is how the second petal (major) has a slightly darker highlight than the sunlit one does. Taking into consideration the "whole" of the tulip. I know it has a sharp curvature facing the sunlight though, so I'm going to add that extra highlight there at the end. Looking good

[Val]

Good on you Pat 

[patindaytona]

Thanks Val. Hope no hurricane is anywhere near you. Here in Florida, it's going to miss as you've probably heard. Should expect some big waves though tomorrow....6 miles from the beach here in Daytona.

[nolan]

sounds good Pat

[patindaytona]

When you added that extra color value besides the light/base and shadow,   just curious if you primarily use the "extra" on mostly on broadly lit subject such as this very broad curvature of the large petal? Otherwise, if it's sharper between color/value transition, an extra value isn't as important. Hope you understand what i'm trying to say. I'm good at knowing things, but I still go back and throw everything off! I originally used the banding with color values, but in some places I just went back and adjusted with a little straight orange, etc and blended into the wet paint. It's better! But hope I'm not making mistakes by going back and undoing that careful blend work of separate values side by side. I "part" from method so strongly.

[nolan]

the mix inbetween the base and shadow was just a darker version of the base colour, ie., I added the next colour down on the colour wheel. In this case it was red to the orange. I wanted to go darker before getting into the shadow colours because I want my painting to be bright.

[patindaytona]

Ok, I get it now. So you can really think of it as an extension of the shadow having more chroma maintained in it. And not as an extension of the light value. It has more to do with the shadow.

[nolan]

sound about right Pat

[patindaytona]

Nolan or Dennis, have you or any of your students done the Tulip painting more than once? It would make a great painting for anyone. I might do it again, once I've finished the first one. Doing it twice, or more would really drive the point home on understanding how light behaves and the shadows. I especially understood how you adding a touch of Ultramarine in the small crevase so it would be just slightly darker than the adjacent shadow. Things like that, I'd have to paint it again to really fully understand it well.

[patindaytona]

I haven't finished yet Sara. I have the grass blades to do yet and also have to wait to do those dew drops. Looking real nice though. Are you doing the tulip also?

[nolan]

Pat these tulips were one of my best sellers in South Africa, so yes I have done many of them. The ones I sell though I usually paint with the knife to give a different effect so they "stand out from the crowd"