Stately Irises palette knife painting in oils

stately Irises palette knife painting

Oil on box canvas (1.5cm deep)

15x20cm (6"x8")

Available in my Etsy store

I love this time of year. After the tulips die down, the irises are the next to appear. As well as the dark blue border irises, these pale purple irises are amongst the first to appear. They are tall, and although not as showy as the bearded irises, they give a beautiful purple haze under the citrus trees.

About this painting
I painted this in a loose impasto style, dancing around the canvas with my palette knife, aiming more for the purple glow than true representation of the irises.

Some Close-ups of the knife work

Honesty and glass palette knife painting in oils

 Honesty and glass palette knife painting

18x24cm (approx 7"x10")

Archival canvas panel

I struggled with this painting. The vase and jug are semi opaque and I had difficulty in getting that across. It is hard when using opaque paints to give the illusion of transparency. I also found the background difficult and changed it a few times. Does this one work? The green jug is made of recycled glass and is not symmetrical. I painted it a couple of times, before I discovered it wasn't just my painting LOL! What do you think, should I make it symmetrical?

Here are some close-ups of the painting

This is painting is for day 13 of the 30 paintings in 30 days challenge hosted by Leslie Saeta. Pop over to my Joy of Colour blog to see the my other paintings in the challenge.

Ikebana 1 - Pink Chrysanthemums

Ikebana 1 - Pink Chrysanthemums

22x27cm (approx  9"x11")

oil on canvas board

Palette knife painting

I've taken a break from painting landscapes for the last couple of dates to paint some floral still lifes.

I was given a book on Ikebana by a neighbour and this started me thinking about this month's challenge on the floral forum of wetcanvas.com. This painting is inspired by the book, the challenge and my imagination.

It is the first time I have painted chrysanths and I wanted to achieve an ethereal 'look' in the painting. I used a very limited palette and started with an indistinct background using my main colours. I liked the result, if I was to do it again, I would probably make the flowers larger and blend them in more with some of the green. What do you think?

I liked the idea of using Ikebana as the basis of the painting and I have completed four paintings for the challenge so I will post another tomorrow.

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