I appreciate American Art Collector magazine including me and my still life paintings in the Artist Focus Pages of the January 2019 issue.  It's a privilege to be associated with so many talented artist from around the country.  

Thank you American Art Collector Magazine.

I'm honored to be the October featured artist in the Grafica Gallery Newsletter.  You can download the article using the following link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ihli9mkv9sldq8w/Grafica%20News%20Fall%20201729.pdf?dl=0

Please let me know your thoughts or comments. And, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Ron

Oil Painting of Pansies & Grapes Creation

Pansy Flowers over the past centuries have been used as a symbol of remembrance and love. Giving a love one a bouquet of pansies is still a way of saying I’m thinking of you, I miss you, and I love you. Symbolism in paintings is as old as painting itself. Symbolism in still life paintings make the painting intimate, emotional and provides connectivity to the viewer. In this Pansies & Grapes oil painting I made the vase full of pansies the main focus of the painting through the use of light and shadow. It would be an added bonus if it brings back some memories between lovers when pansies were involved. The following was my approach to painting Pansies & Grapes:

The Background

The background is very important. The background contributes to the atmosphere, mystery, and depth of the painting and contributes to the emotional impact of the final painting. I generally repaint the background two or three times during the painting process. When starting a new oil painting, I begin with creating a limbo background as shown above keeping it warm or cool depending on the hue/temperature of objects that will be in the painting. In Pansies & Grapes, I planned to have a yellowish vase with white pansies that will be the main focus of the painting. The original vase image was middle blue. For color harmony, I created this cool brownish background using raw umber and ultra blue. I added raw sienna and white to create a lighter brown-yellowish area (difficult to see here) to represent light traveling behind the main focus of pansies and vase of the oil painting. This light will add atmosphere and depth to the painting.

Placing the Objects

After the background is dry, I begin placing the objects into the oil painting using variations of greys. I block in light direction to indicate light and shadows making sure all the objects are lighted correctly. I also indicate where the highlights will be – they serve as anchors to keep me on track with the light source direction. My goal in this stage is to create dimension, relative size and weight of the objects and depth in the painting, and using grey values enables me to make as many corrections as needed prior to applying color. I repaint part of the background to lighten the area around the flowers and vase to achieve more depth in the painting.

Painting the Objects

I let the previous stage dry over night before applying color to the gray objects. I generally focus on the main objects (largest) first painting each one at a time and taking the painting of those objects close to finish. In this painting I begin applying a glaze-like thin layer of lemon yellow with a touch of ultra-blue over the grey values on the vase. I want to keep the colors vibrant and this thin layer is a good beginning. While I don’t always begin with a glaze, the grey values can serve as an under-painting that provides me the option of this approach. I added a touch of ivory black and background color for the vase’s shadows. Apply another thin layer of middle value of vase color over the light area for transition into shadow and to give the vase more roundness overall – and bringing the oil painting more to life.

The pansies are next and I apply more contrast by darkening the values of grey and better defining the peddles of the flowers using Permalba white with a little Portland grey medium. I paint the pedals wet-on-wet to better integrate the subtle differences of the light whites, darker greys and purple colors of the flowers. I increasingly added Torrit Grey to white as the flowers move into more shadow away from the light. For the lightest areas of the white pedals, I mixed Permalba White with just enough Portland Grey Medium to knock down the white so highlights will stand off the pedals.

Finishing the Painting

I continued wet-on-wet painting of the grapes, orange slice and tabletop. I also add in more detail in the flowers, vase and other objects and added the orange slice reflection to bringing the oil painting more to life. The vase’s shadow was too high flattening out the space above. I fixed that by lowing the shadow and adding more space between the highlight and shadow. Finally, I restate the highlights.