French Roses - Step-by-Step Still Life
Click HERE to see detailed image
Well maybe Roses were not French "per se" but they were sitting in the French room called Paris in a beautiful cozy hotel Inn At Depot Hill in Capitola, California. My friend and I were staying there a couple weeks ago when visiting Capitola Art Festival. I started painting these roses life in the room, then took photo and finished the painting at home. And of course I started painting with the main subject, the roses, and the brass vase.
Here are a few Step-by-Step pictures of the process:
The first under-wash for roses was yellow, but later on I was going to cool down with pink and violet. The bass vase came along pretty nice and the old granite table complemented the metal vase.
Background for the roses was a black tile. It helped me to achieve a great contrast to "push" the roses forward. A soft, future French walls, was a mix of Burnt Siena and Umber.
Roses needed a few good layers to bring the complex multi petal flower to life.
Layer after layer I was creating one petal after another. Good music on the back ground helped me to say focused and give my full attention to the roses, the models of the day.
At this stage the roses and the leaves are almost completed, just a few stokes needed to make the flowers pop-up and clean the pencil drawing with eraser.
Here the tiles of the fireplace started coming to life.And a vague reflection of the roses in the vase brought some depth to the background.
And here The French are coming! The pattern of the tapestry style walls reflected roses, trees, birds, pastoral scenes.. Ah Mon Chéri the girl on a wall was saying to her party..
When I was a kid, my sister and I were painting walls in tiny little Summer house in Saint Petersburg suburbs. Our Grandma gave us full spectrum of paint and allowed us to use our imagination. Would she ever know that 30 some years later I will paint a French wall on my Rose Still life watercolor :0)
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Original Artwork
French Roses is 16"x12" on 300 lb Arches Cold Pressed Paper
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And here I was just playing to see how wonderfully it would look on a greeting card, isn't it..
In Every Piece Of My Art
There Is A Piece Of My Heart And A Sparkle Of My Soul
