Yellow Rose

This rose took forever, but I am pleased with the level of details and the likeness to the reference pictures. The grisaille was in umber and then of course I proceeded to the colour layer. Have a look at the steps it took to get there.

Again I started with a very rough outline and then proceed to a detailed drawing directly with the brush.

The colours I used are:

• Titanium White

• Yellow Ocre

• Raw Umber

• Paynes Grey

The Medium was very lean:

• 5 parts Turpentine

• 1 part Damar Varnish

• 1 part Linseed Oil

The finished grisaille looked like this:

I then started the first colour layer. Here the colours I used were:

• Paynes Grey

• Lead White

• Cadimium Yellow (pale hue)

• Cadmium Yellow

• Sap Green

• Emerald Green

• Cadmium Red (deep hue)

The medium used here was a little more fat:

• 2 parts Turpentine

• 2 parts Damar Varnish

• 1 part Linseed Oil

As you can see the grisaille layer shows through this colour layer,

Also I've eliminated the last petal to the left (the one that covered part of the leaf) because it would have spoilt the form of the crinkled petal immediately next to it, the shape of which I really loved.

The completed first colour layer looked like this:

At this point I liked the shape and the detail, however the rose looked quite flat and it needed some glazing and some highlights.

So I have added those and here is the final for the rose part:

At this point, what's next? The painting is already on my mother's wall as she could not wait, so I need to go there and proceed to do the following:

• add highlights and glazing to the leaf, which is still pretty basic

• eliminate the shadows that are too dark in the inner petal (lower center, where some Umber and Paynes Grey still show)

• sign and varnish

As my mother is in Venice, Italy, it will take some time before I can go there and have a good session or two. Those sessions need to be followed by varnishing a good few months after the last colour touches.

At this moment I have to leave it like this.