Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Painting White

"White In Italian Pitcher"
20x16 Oil on Linen
Last week I went to the market to find some inspiration in the flower section and ended finding it in all the varieties and textures of white! I never quite know what I'll end up with until I'm standing there immersed in all the colors of flowers. This day it was white! A few years ago I found this old Italian pitcher at a second hand store and thought it would be perfect with this bunch of white.
I used the branch on the table to soften the painting and build some what of a circular composition bringing the eye back around. The one leaf touching the pitcher helps to connect the loose branch to the the pitcher supporting the design.
It's a fun challenge to paint this variety of whites in one painting, I find it very harmonious. I started off by building all my shadows, which were fairly cool compared to the lit areas of white. I'm always concentrating on my 'averages' in each mass before I start breaking in my subtleties. When I paint flowers, my goal is never to paint a literal interpretation of each little petal but rather respond with paint to the character of each flower's growth. I pay attention to their shapes, texture and color temperature compared to what's around them. The more I paint flowers, the more I realize that when I am working and struggling on correcting what I think to be INcorrect, it usually ends up being what's AROUND what I think is incorrect that's incorrect! Whew, ya still with me?? :) And when I fix it's neighboring color and value, I find my solution! Big reminder, everything is relative to it's surrounding neighbor color and value! So, with that said, here you have it, "White In Italian Pitcher"

4 comments:

Judy P. said...

A good lesson here, and lovely light on the flowers, great brushstrokes!

Kami Mendlik said...

Thank you Judy! Good to hear from you. The Stillwater Art Crawl is this Friday, I"ll be at The Tamarack Gallery. Hope to see you there!

Stacy said...

I love this.

Kami Mendlik said...

Thank you Stacy! :) Good to hear from you!