The Piper's Sunflower

The Piper's Sunflower

This painting had a different approach than usual. It is 11" x 14" oil on canvas and the subject is the popular sunflower. This one I would sit and look at waiting at my son's bagpipe lesson and just love this oversized drooping seed head with side lighting late in the day. What was different was the raw sienna underpainting and then the rub-out with the cloth. The video link below shows the process. I did use real turpentine, hence the gloves, plus the window was open and fans running to avoid the fumes. The underpainting was quite nice, especially where the rubbed out portions were because the pigment gets caught in the canvas texture. For medium I used Liquin's Impasto for fun which gets the paint fluffy like butter and sugar when you're making chocolate chip cookie dough, and adds some final texture. The blue background is the thickest I've made in quite a while.

Seems everyone has to make a sunflower painting at least once. 

Roses

Roses

A 12"x16" oil on canvas to record these pretty flowers.

These are most of the second bloom from the Jackson and Perkins roses I planted this spring.  The white roses are "Moondance" and the pink ones are "April in Paris" which are much more rose perfumed.    In referencing old rose paintings from Franz Bischoff, it looks like he planted different curling varieties, some looked like David Austen roses, others were shaped like "Pope John Paul" where the petals make an angular fold.  Bischoff's ceramics (must see these!) are drippingly gorgeous and brought back memories of my mother's china dish painting and kiln, which she had been taught to do years ago in the South.

Here is