Lilies

Teacher Painting

"Lillies" 7 x 12" Oil on Canvas by Richard Robinson.

Resource

Resource

Student Painting

'Lillies' 490x595mm Acrylic on Canvas Paper by Kym West

Hi Kym, nice work. You've nearly got your own style working great there - just a little more work! What you've done really well is sharp edges versus soft edges and big shapes versus small details. You nearly pulled off rough background versus smooth foreground too, but the muddiness around the cast shadows on the cloth is detracting from that. Doing that in acrylic does seem to be trickier, so I'd suggest premixing big piles of paint before you start that area and using two brushes - one for light and one for dark. Beautiful!

Student Painting

'Lillies' 9x12" Alkyd on Canvas by Mike Robles

Good work Mike. You pretty much nailed the drawing, your layout is probably better than mine (more balanced at any rate), and your colours are strong, although there could be darker shadows in the biggest flower which seems a little flat at present. (Easy to glaze that with the alkyds since they dry so fast). I can see you're started to play with the edges on some of the petals but I'd encourage you to explore that even further to help avoid that 'cut-out' look that's so prevalent in fast drying media. You certainly managed it in the cast shadows on the cloth which look great. Anyway keep looking, keep painting. It's great to see your improvement over time.

Student Painting

'Lillies' 9x12" Watercolour on Paper by Walda Juhl

Good on you for attempting this in watercolour Walda - not easy! Your drawing is pretty good and I can see you battling with the subtleties of light and shade in those petals, which you've won in some petals and lost in others where the lights are too similar to the darks so it ends up flattening it. You've endeavoured to put some strong darks in there too to contrast the lights which is good to see - it's always so darn hard to achieve strong darks in watercolour! I wondered what this might look like overall with even stronger darks and more contrast so I took a moment to fiddle with it in Photoshop. See what you think.

Student Painting

'Canna Lillies' 38x30cm Oil on Canvas by Denis King - Altered

Background made slightly darker and purplish, foreground darks made darker.

Student Painting

'Lillies' 9x12" Watercolour on Paper by Walda Juhl - Altered

Darks and midtones made darker, lights a little lighter.

Student Painting

'Lillies on Red' 9x12" Oil on Canvas by Joy Driggs

Wow this is really punchy and fun to look at Joy - good work. Visual music! The flowers are great, nothing I'd want to change there, the pods too, though the front one could do with that little cast shadow from the petal on it to help make that spacial relationship more clear and give it more curve at the back. It's a shame you didn't continue those fun little sparks of green and blue in the middle, taking them above there and into the background a little - it's like a trumpet started playing but was cut short. That light blue-grey area under the central pod is, just like I said in the video, spoiling the simplicity of the shadow area there. Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Better to darken that down and simplify that area - it's not important so it's best to subdue it. Other than that, I love this!

Student Painting

'Canna Lillies' 38x30cm Oil on Canvas by Denis King

Great work Denis. Nice to see you taking something for your own garden. The overall idea of colour vs grey is a good one and it's worked well for the most part but the grey appears to be pretty dead neutral whereas if you'd added a little more colour in there like a blue or purple it would make those flowers pop even more. Alternatively you could add warm greys or green greys for a more harmonious colour scheme. Doesn't need to be a lot, just something to move it off dead neutral. Despite that, the value gradation there works well. The greys in the spaces amongst the leaves is too light in value which flattens the image. Perhaps that's due to surface sheen in the photograph. Anyway, see how it looks with those two things altered a little in Photoshop, the background and the foreground darks. Other than those two things you've done great work here in capturing all the subtle shapes and colour variations in the difficult and complex subject. I was also impressed by your copy of my lilly painting by the way. Good work!