This painting marks my halfway point of 6 paintings for our Italy show. I was supposed to have everything done by 3/18 but got a week’s reprieve – they are now due 3/25. It’s dangerous to give me even just a week more time! But I am confident now that I will make it. Here is where I am on my next botanical, the grapes from Villa Palmerino, one day before the harvest.
Things are starting to flesh out…
I had to leave the grapes to go work on the rest of the painting so that know where to balance the shadow detail on the grapes. I need to finish the leaf so that I know how much of the vine I need to fully paint to balance my composition. It’s all about balance in this painting; this is a symmetrical painting in my mind so I want all parts to be harmonious. This means the color palette, the composition and the shadow/highlight detail all need to be in ‘balance’. Just what that means might be different for everyone but as I work on this painting, you will be able to see what it means to me.
Here is my last egg tempera panel that I started in Italy. I sat in the beautiful sunshine and finally attempted to capture that elusive “Florence yellow” that so many of the buildings are covered with. There were a lot of conversations between all the artists as to what colors they were using to try and re-create that particular shade of yellow-orange. And there were as many different combinations as there were conversations!
Can I capture that elusive “Florence yellow” of the building?
I received the following comment yesterday;
You have to express more your opinion to attract more readers, because just a video or plain text without any personal approach is not that valuable. But it is just form my point of view.
It is most likely spam, but it caught my attention. I beg to differ with it’s stated opinion as everything I post is my own personal approach to painting, farming and yarns. I believe I do express my own opinion, however, I also believe the saying that a ‘picture is worth a thousand words”. I think the question I get asked most as an artist is “how do you do that, how do you paint?”. Showing works-in-progress is about the best way I can think of to illustrate how I work. My work is a visual example of my ‘opinions’!
I will keep updating as I work on these two paintings! I am thinking of keeping my last botanical painting a surprise. I am thinking I will post it when I am done. I am really excited about working on that one, which is good as I need to get it done FAST!