pink ladies

Winsor & Newton HP 300 gsm, 14" x 10". 4 hours.

labor day weekend is the end of summer, and in sonoma county the end of summer comes with the brief display of pink ladies, a late blooming magenta lily. i cut these flowers from a rural roadside and painted them the next day.

i twice made drawing failures, first using a charcoal that was too dark and then trusting to a freehand that could not get it right. the painting was made by squaring the image, copying freehand, and using single pigments for most color areas.

i like the quality of literalism and childlike simplicity that almost makes it into the image.

one reason i did this painting was to try my hand at using a latex resist to reserve the paper edges and the stems and petals of backgrounded flowers. i learned how to do it only near the end of doing it, but the ragged quality makes the image more informal.

i was strongly tempted to try this again on a full sheet, doing all the steps the same and correcting a few problems, such as the color balance between the bright yellow and the rest of the hues. i think the problem is that magenta and yellow are both illuminant cues, and they conflict for some reason. i've put the next painting off until i can let this one settle in the eye.