When I really want to relax I paint a simple still life of roses. I was inspired long ago by the sweet simplicity of the roses painted by Manet and always go to this arrangement for a way to warm up or try a color scheme or harmony. They are always very similar and always very different. Sometimes I tone the canvas with color! as I did here with orange, sienna and ultramarine blue. Sometimes I try a triadic color scheme of only three colors and sometimes I just want to use blue and burnt sienna. In other words, I like to play around with it and see what kind of uniqueness I can conjure up. These, I did last nite and they are similar, but even painting with two different sized canvases can change it up a bit. You approach the canvas with a different brush or a different articulation of the wrist.
This one I drew in the outline with alizarin crimson/gamsol line and when I added the lights and shadows there was a blending that took place. I have a very gold frame that I had in mind so I wanted to stick to the orange incorporation of colors
The second painting I did was larger and I was a little more controlled but not much. I just let the colors take me where I felt I wanted to go without doing an exact copy. I wanted it to have it's very own presence. I think the biggest variation between the two is the size of the brush strokes. This second one is 12 x 16
