"Stage Left"

I was at a friend's home and spotted these yellow and orange roses. They took my breath away so I cut a few to paint. I didn't have a board prepared so I taped some gessoed canvas to a board and began with a quick color sketch.

Upon getting this far I felt that I had a done a poor composition and wondered if I should abandon it. Because I had no permanently fixed boundaries, I was able to acquire some more canvas on the left and top borders by simply moving the tape.

After developing it to this point I took some shots for viewing on screen––this helps me to see any needed changes. I felt that the dark shadow at the top was creating a arch that seemed contrived and somewhat muddy. Although the rose was very close to being this intense in yellow, orange and red, I really wanted it to "pop" out of the picture plane. I decided to tone down the flower to a softer color. ( One note to make about photographing stages: these first three shots were taken at night in my studio and appear warmer in tone. The color of the syrup crock is more accurate in this third shot. The blue is a cornflower blue with lots of violet in it that is not accurately represented in the final shot ).

Click on images to enlarge.

This morning I made the final changes to the upper right background and to the rose and took this shot outdoors in the shade. No changes were made below the bottom edge of the flower so you can see quite a difference in color reproduction due to different lighting conditions. Over all this is very close to the final painting except for the crock color. After it dries, it will be mounted to 1/8" thick board cut to the dimensions, 8 3/8"x 6 5/16". I think I see an orange theme developing.......

This painting is available.