Finished work: "Sideways"

It has been a while but I am finally ready to step back from this canvas. I always find the last stages of a painting a bit fraught....when to stop fiddling and tweaking.

As a painting nears completion, I sometimes wonder when to stop... the best clue for me is when I start painting the next one in my head. (Kathryn Mullaney)

Snapshot from the studio

After a break I have decided to go back to bold florals. The Autumn colours are particularly vibrant this year and have prompted the colours behind the latest canvas. This one is big: 30 x 24" and destined for the Arts Group exhibition next week (if I can finish it that is). Today I started it and this is just getting some paint down to get the feel and atmosphere. Much more to do yet.

Elusion

I have been working on this lily canvas for some time...in between holidays, crimson paint shortage, and the general chaos that accompanies school holidays when you're a WAHM.

This week I decided I wanted to change it. It didn't sit right and the right feel was eluding me.

So I redrew.


Then I reblocked the colours to build some texture.


And now I am putting the life back into the petals.

I should be up all night finishing this. I have taken the paint beyond the boundaries of the petals to give the feeling of sweep and flow. When I add the next layer of background I will redefine the flower again. I paint most of my flowers this way....they come and go on the canvas while I build up their structure. I find it difficult to paint something within a boundary. Thats just colouring in.

Some work in progress to share...

One of my current commissions is a gift, from a husband to a wife. The brief was calla lilies and a dark background, to hang alongside a passionflower painting I had been previously commissioned to paint.

I wanted the lilies to symbolise an enduring togetherness, where its almost but not quite impossible to tell where one lily starts and another begins. And you cannot decide who is leaning on whom, sometimes its one, sometimes its the other.
This is a paintlet, about 20 cm across. Which serves as a sample for colour match and composition. I am going to build a deeper, more passionate purple/pink into the petals.