Friday, January 22, 2010

Pear And Flowers Demo

"Flowers And A Pear"
14x11 Oil On Linen
I really enjoy painting flowers and water. I think that with my still life pieces I get absorbed in the painting and lose myself a bit. I'm finding myself 'using' the still life that is in front of me as inspiration rather than copying the exact colors shapes and values that I see. I care a lot about the gesture and growth of the flowers and their color relationships.

In this piece I was really drawn to the green in the pear and the stems and how they harmonize with each other. THAT to me was the reason I painted this piece.



I start my pieces be looking at the large, simple, almost abstract shapes and angles. I used a wash of magenta at this point.

Typically I like to get my largest masses in first. The reason I find this helpful is that color is only relative to what surrounds it so it's important to start getting your color in. Then I start getting in my darks that provide a structure or foundation for you color. Also drawing in lines that separate between light and dark.


Once I get some darks in I start massing in some lit areas to get the color harmony going.


The comment I hear from more people is that 'water is difficult' to paint. I don't agree, in fact I love painting water of any kind. I think the first thing to realize is that it's just color and value. Don't think of it as 'clear water' but rather shapes of color. When painting this clear vase, I broke down the larger simple shapes within the mass (vase) and asked myself if it was light/darker and cooler/warmer than it's neighbor color (in this case the background) it really makes it simple to paint when you think of it like this. Also, your paint needs to go on clean! I try and load my brush when painting in the stems and get them down with one stroke. Oh, and only put in what you see when you squint!


Whenever I paint, I'm always asking myself 'is it in light or dark?" Keep lights in light and darks in dark.




Flowers have character to them and each type of flower has their own uniqueness. When I'm painting flowers I really zone out and paint how they 'feel' not necessarily every little pedal.


Highlights on the vase and almost finished. . . .There's a little glare on this photo, I'll take a better one tomorrow so you can see the subtlety.


7 comments:

Dennis Dame said...

Very nice work Kami! I love the rich color on the flower stems! Super work!

Kami Mendlik said...

Thanks Dennis! I appreciate it. Happy Painting to you! :)

Unknown said...

Wonderful work, Kami.
I am looking forward to the winter class. By the way, the carousel picture is awesome!

Kami Mendlik said...

Hi HeeJune! Thank you. :) I'm excited to be back teaching again, looking forward to a new start!

Brad said...

Inspired me to try an orchid and pear yesterday! Did you do that in one sitting? Thanks for the demo.

Kami Mendlik said...

Yes, I did it in one day. Did come back the following day though and put a few lights in. But I really wanted to keep the edges workable so worked to get it mostly finished in one sitting!

Great to hear it inspired you! How did it turn out? :)

Brad said...

Wow. 1 day. That's great. Mine's still in the works. About 1 1/2 hours into it. Perhaps I'm not taking the time to verify the correct color and commit to using a lot of paint (I'm cheap) to cover correctly. I woke up this morning and realized some changes that I need to do to that painting. Need to play with some warm and cool colors and knock back the green since it doesn't harmonize. You can see it if you like. It's my latest post at behnes.com. I have a day off next week so I hope to go for round/layer two! I tried to give you a 'trackback' but I just put a hyperlink. New at blogs. Thanks.