"Pink Roses" 2nd lesson of Alla Prima Online Course.

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"Pink Roses"

9 x 12 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

I hope everyone had a great christmas and even better new years.  I am finally back and ready to get the new years started, I've been slaving away to get this second instructional video complete and happy to announce that its READY!  The lesson is on the one and only "Pink Roses" which is shown above.  I detail my process with each stage and have a written format that covers each section of the videos.  From the amount of requests I had to paint roses for my second lesson was the primary reason why I decided to do so.  Discussing in depth big and small form modeling is one of the differences from the first lesson, which is also one of the main points of advancing with these lessons.  If your interested in signing up for this lesson please email me at jonallerpainting@gmail.com

I also wanted to let everyone know who lives in Minneapolis that I'll be teaching in late January at the Bloomington Art Center.  I'll be teaching an oil painting class which you can find more information by click here, and also a figure drawing class and you can also find more information by clicking here.

Trailer for the second lesson of the Alla Prima Online Course "Pink Roses".

"Peonies Fuchsia"

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"Peonies Fuchsia"

8 x 10 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

I've been wanting to paint just fuchsia peonies and glad I did so, they have so deep colors within them I wish I had all the colors in the spectrum to render their beauty.  As stated in my other posts about peonies they are not easy to paint and especially when painting with the color fuchsia, you have to be careful in the way you apply lighter colors to the mix.  Peonies have such beautiful textures to them thats one of the main things I enjoyed the most about them, playing around with the brush and experimenting to see what kind of textures you can get is beyond fun.  With this painting I also decided to paint some baby peonies, they look so neat from there beginning stages all curled up and when they blossom they are even more beautiful.  To have baby peonies together with the full blossom ones gives a nice feel to the overall painting.

I started with the usual dry brush approach using a bit of raw umber on the brush just to get the main placement of the drawing down.  I was not concerned rendering every petal at this stage I wanted to just concentrate on the overall composition and how sat within the canvas, later I'll be able to render the peonies to finish when the base is applied.  After the drawing is complete I stated all the colors at once from the background to the stems and peonies, reason I did that is to have a general feel of the painting.  When working on such an intricate composition and there's so much going on its good to see the color harmony between each object.  I keep the paints thin at this stage I try not to get to thick, keeping the paints thin creates a base so I can easily maneuver around with my darks and lights in the later stages.  The colors I used are quinacridone magenta for the peonies, ultramarine blue and cad. yellow for the leaves and stem, and ultramarine blue and naples yellow for the background. 

After the general statement stage I move on to modeling the forms with the peonies, I make sure not to go to dark at this stage just to get the form turning in a subtle way.  The colors I use to mix with the peonies to turn the form is ultramarine blue and ivory black.  Then I start adding the darker values and its specific forms using the same colors as stated before.

Then I added the lighter values and its specific forms, at this stage I'm bouncing back and forth between values and adjusting them to the right look.  The colors I used for this stage is titanium white, naphthol red and quinacridone magenta.  After the top peonies are close to completion I them start on the bottom ones, I first add the darker values and its specific forms as I did with the previous stage.  I'm using the same colors as I did with the other peonies.

Then I add lighter values and its specific forms and take them to a close finish, again using the same colors as I did with the top peonies.  Then I work on the leaves and stems, I start to emphasize the darker values and its specific forms.  The colors I used in this stage were ultramarine blue, viridian, yellow ochre, cad. yellow pale.  After finishing the leaves I then went around all over and started softening edges, doing this effect pushed some peonies further back and in turn left the other peonies in focus.  I know I've said it in the past how important it is to soften edges and keep some sharper, but I cannot stress it enough.  Edges can make or break you'r painting its vital to understand them and pay close attention to them.  With my initial stages I like to keep all the edges soft this allows me to gradually build up in values and keep the form turning.  The later stages I start to add sharper edges to show more focus or where I want your eye to lead.  Edges are important in many ways they are fundamental from rendering and turning the forms to finishing the last touches in you'r painting, never lose sight of them and experiment as much as you can with them.  Thanks for stopping by and viewing, I hope you enjoyed this one!

"Peonies"

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"Peonies"

8 x 10 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

Being on vacation has its benefits but the downside is that I wasn't able to paint for a while, it was nice going back home and relaxing it lets me clear my head and come back with a fresh slate.  I cannot believe its been a week since I last painted I don't like that I had to do that, since coming back from vacation I've just been so busy with everything and finally had time today to paint again.  It feels so great to paint again it just puts all your worries away and I just dive into my painting not thinking of anything else, its pretty therapeutic.  I always say to myself after not painting for a while how I can go so long, I seriously go through withdraws.  What can I say I'm addicted to painting!

Peonies are intimidating to me their pedals are so complicated to paint and there's not a set way to paint them.  To say that I went out of my comfort zone again is an understatement, especially being the first painting back from not painting for a while.  Usually I like to paint a couple pictures before I dive into something so complicated like this, but today I just decided to go at it.  Peonies are just so beautiful in their subtle colors and how each pedal has so much character to it.  Other than being intimidated to paint the pedals I was also excited because I can be so gestural with the paints, usually I'm not able to do that but with this painting I went to town with it.  The subtle colors and gestural strokes made it so much fun to paint, I'm really happy with this painting and how it came out I hope you can see how much fun I had with the process photos.  Now time to get back to the grinding wheel and start painting more again!    

I started with the usual dry brush approach using no mediums and just a bit of raw umber on the brush for the drawing stage.  I kept the drawing pretty simple didn't want to get to detailed since these flowers are pretty complicated with each fold.  After the drawing is complete I went in and added the general colors of the peonies, not worried about details at this stage just the statement of color and how it wraps around the form.  I also do not add the darkest and lightest values, I wait to do that in their separate stages.  

I start on the first two peonies working them at the same time, I only paint the middle to darker values.  When that stage is close to completion I start on the lighter values and highlights, this stage was so much fun.  Since each pedal has a gestural look to them I decided to treat them in that manner, I went very gestural with each stroke I didn't wanna make it to abstract just enough to give the sense of movement.  When filling in the lighter values I bounce back to the darker values and adjust the intensity if need be, usually it does.

Once they are done I move onto the next two starting with the middle to darker values, I wish I can say my approach to painting peonies is the same as my other paintings, it's not.  There are some similarities but peonies are so complicated with each pedal, they are so mushed in together its hard to just render each pedal one at a time.  When adding the lighter values and highlights I also go back to the darks and adjust their intensity, and also go back to the lighter values and do the same.  When adding the lighter values I notice I need to add the darker values around the peonies which are the leaves, they frame the peonies and give them their shape which is important so I can take it to a finish.  I keep working on the peonies for a while bouncing back and forth from darker to lighter values, I'm also getting thicker with the strokes in the lights.   As stated before I'm being more gestural with the strokes to indicate movement and texture, I can not lie it was so much painting like this I was able to be gestural than usual.

Then I filled in the background after finishing the peonies, stating the background now is important so I can address the edges and push certain areas further away.  When stating the background I also fill in the  stems and clear vase, once that was complete I go back into the leaves and take them to a finish by adding more chroma and lighter values in certain areas.  This painting was a lot of fun all the way till the finish, playing with textures and movement of the paint was a neat thing to do.  I'm looking to implore more of that in the future with my paintings.  I hope you guys had a lot of fun with this one, thanks for stopping by and viewing!