Tulips and Bowl {a new painting}

Still Life with Tulips and a Bowl
{8" x 10" (20.3 x 25.4 cm) – Oil on Canvas}

Hello,

After working on the smaller scaled tulip paintings I decided to jump up to an 8x10 inch size. For the time being I have decided to work on smaller format paintings {last year my goal was to get comfortable with 16x20 and larger canvases}, staying smaller helps the process go faster, thus increasing the opportunities to practice completing paintings.

This painting was completed over three sessions. On the first day I worked mainly in blocking in the composition and then focused on getting the tulip flowers painted. I knew they would change rapidly and wanted to complete as much as possible from life. I also did take a photo of the setup that first session so I could have a record of how the stem and leaves looked on the first day. Typically when I take a photo I do so for recording the shape of things as I print the photo out in black and white on my laser printer. I prefer working from life and using the colors I see in front of me, as the eye can see and interpret color better than a photograph can.

On the second day I worked on flushing out the leaves and stems and laid in the first layers of the bowl. The bowl required a series of steps, I used opaque paints initially and then used thick glazes of blues to lay in the pattern of the bowl. Because of the high quantity of linseed oil in the glazes, the painting had to sit and dry for a few days before I could come back and complete the finishing touches.

For the last session, I mainly used glazes to add a final layer to the bowl giving it a greater depth and dimension, and in areas on the tulips either opaque highlights were added for extra oomph or glazes were washed over the flowers to unify the shape of the flowers.