Return to the Canadian Rockies

I started this painting of the Canadian Rockies a while back.  I wanted to get back to it and today I had time.  I have a photo to look at for a reference, but a lot of what there is to capture about July in the mountains is the clarity of the air, the majesty of the mountains, the force of nature.  Those intangibles are the challenge.

Flowers and more flowers

I got one last small painting out of the bouquet I brought into the studio last week.

The roses were painted based on an arrangement on the table at Rose's Luxury, a very wonderful restaurant in DC.  I took a photo of them and between that reference and my warm feelings/memories of a big family/friend dinner, painted them as lush and loose.

Flowers, finished

Well, I didn't think I'd end up here, but there was something about the rhythm of the petals of the chrysanthemums that kept calling out to me.  

Work in progress

This painting started out as a closer view of the bouquet I started painting last week.  There was a shadow on the wall of the slats of a rocking chair that I particularly liked.  I was working on a black ground, so the painting quickly took on a very high-contrast, sharp-edged look.  Not what I really wanted.  I gave the painting the wipe-over today and I'm working back into it now.

this is how the painting looked before the "wipe over"

this is where it is now 

Flowers

I bought these flowers and stuck them in a shapely, hand-painted Italian pitcher, but as I was painting them, the handle shape, the pattern on the pitcher and pitcher curves seemed to take on a life of their own and simply overwhelmed what I was trying to do with the flowers.   So the "vase" is really a representation of the light below the arrangement and put there to support the painting's focus.

   The bright blue in the background is the jacket I was wearning and hung on a chair behind the flowers.  I liked the color there so it became part of the background.

Striation

The latest iteration of the portrait I've been playing around with came to me today. Unifying and dividing the portrait at the same time.