"Lupines by the Bay" 12x24, oil
The weathermen were right, and I was able to get out to finish my lupine painting this morning.
Painting lupines with oils alla prima or wet-into-wet is a tricky thing. Flowers should be painted pure and rich in color. But the colors of lupines are exactly the complement of the green foliage that surrounds them. You're putting down blue-violet atop yellow-orange, or red-violet atop yellow-green. This is a sure-fire recipe for mud!
Having a semi-absorbent surface helps, which is what I used for this piece. Those first greens tend to sink down and stay put, allowing you to lay on the complement without stirring up the green. Splitting the painting process over two days helps, too. The first day's paint will be dry enough to lay down fresh paint without making mud.
For this painting, to make the lupines really rich, I added two colors that aren't part of my standard split-primary palette. Gamblin's Radiant Pink and Radiant Blue are perfect for sunlit lupines.
The hunt for a way to distribute video continues. (See my earlier posts, here and here.) I played a bit with creating epub files and PDFs with embedded video, and although I'm learning a lot, I'm also learning that these approaches have some dreadful issues. (Mostly having to do with software compatibility.) This will be the last I say on the matter until I've found a workable solution. Thank you, Lulu.com.
