Water Lily 5

A few hours more this evening, glazing the deep blue with prussian blue and viridian layers. More scumbling for the pads and then selective washes with yellow ochre. Dropped in the rest of the lily petals and began modeling with delicate layers of verona green earth.

Water Lily, Pulling Back

This evening was about pulling back the chroma. First were scumbles over the lily pads, then glazes of chromium oxide and viridian. The water got glazes of alizarin for the foreground and viridian for the background. I'm trying to portray depth with warm and cool. It's really slow going and I wish I had more hours each day to devote to this.

Something I just realized is that I'm making almost no holes, meaning that I'm picking up a sense of control by waiting for the previous coat to be completely dry before applying the next layer. I use a hairdryer as needed when I'm in a hurry.

More Water Lily

I didn't get a whole lot of time this evening but there was a bit of development on the lily, then a bit on the pads, and finally some glazing of the top half with alizarin crimson. I think the glazing is pushing back some distance as it brings down the Prussian Blue's chroma and generally cools it down.

Water Lily 2

After posting last evening I spent more hours on this painting. Here's where I left off late last night. These are scans. I like how the glare is reduced and the Prussian Blue gets to show off its rich beauty.

And here's today's work. More layers of chromium oxide, followed by glazes of yellow ochre. I think I need to turn to the flower next, establishing back petals. After that, it's a matter of working around the painting, giving attention to all areas. That's something Koo taught me, to build up all aspects a bit at a time.

Water Lily

Today I mixed Viridian and Alizarin Crimson pigment pastes and used them for glazes. Later I made my own transfer paper, painting a mix of denatured alcohol and yellow ochre onto tracing paper. That was used to transfer the water lily image I'd earlier sized to fit the gesso panel. Now I'm scumbling and glazing and glazing...

Values

Drawing from the Old Masters Design workshop, what is probably the most important principle is that of clear sections of dark, medium, and light tonal values. On my first day of the workshop, I proudly presented a print of this image. Koo immediately said "No lights!" I explained that of course there were lights, "Just look at that highlight on the pear." After a couple more exchanges, I finally got it. A highlight on a turned form is not a light tonal mass. Each tonal value has to be some kind of object or mass of objects--not just pieces of an object.

This image is, I think, a good example of all three tonal values. And besides that, it also has some interesting black shapes as well as massed tonal values across the lily pads.

Here's a desaturated version of the pear image referenced above. See? No lights!