The rose that is the subject of this painting is in a pot on the patio not in the ground, but I wanted it to appear in a more natural surrounding. I originally wanted a sunlit background with silhouetted leaves but I felt that the yellow bias background would compete with the rich colour of the rose, so I have added some Alizarin crimson to darken it and tone it with the rich yellow/red of the rose. The rose is the hero and the background secondary. There is a little of the crimson tone on the actual leaf of the plant.
                                                                               

The completed painting of a hibiscus. There are some things that I feel needed more careful attention, but overall I am not unhappy with it. I enjoyed adding the shadows, as I always find it exciting to add green into the colour, even though there is no green on the flower itself. Because one of the dominant colours is red, our eyes register the complementary in the shadows. (You can experiment to prove this by looking at a light and then closing your eyes or looking away to a plain area then you should see the light shape in a greenish yellow. Please do not look for so long as to damage your eyes!) The long stamen casts a shadow across the petal but is foreshortened on the painting because of the viewpoint.

Though this painting seems to be moving quite quickly, it still has many subtle tonal details to be added to create the texture of the petals. I mix the colours that I am using for the painting to create the shadow colours; for example, a little red and green added together can be made to have a warm (red) or cool (yellowish green) shadow tone. The deep coloured throat of the flower provides great contrast to the sunlight on the petals. I cannot afford to take too much longer with the centre, as the masking fluid that I applied will be difficult to remove if left too long on the paper.

Not much painting today on my teaching day, but I managed to add some more detail and shadow. It is the contract of the shadows that gives the petals form. I have also started to block the dark areas into the background of a single rose bloom. I do not paint many roses and have only done them at the request of relatives in the past, but this rose had such intensity of colour that I couldn't resist it. My wife and I purchased two of them for the pots in our garden.

After putting the masking fluid in the central stamens, I blocked in the main yellows, using Winsor Yellow, Transparent yellow and Cadmium yellow. There are many tones and shadows to apply yet but I have made a start. I am using Winsor red, Alizarin Crimson and Scarlet Lake to make the red heart. Shadows are being created by using touches of Indigo and Hooker's Green in with the other main colours. It is possible that I will be unhappy with the result as the effects do not always turn out like the picture in my mind. The problem with doing flowers after a break, ( it is a few years since I last painted a hibiscus of such varying colour) is that you become less familiar with the way the colours represent themselves on the petal. It is not unknown for me to tear up a small painting if I do not think that it represents the best that I can do. We shall have to see when this is finished. I have not been unhappy with a painting that I have blogged before, but there is always a first time! The texture of the paper can be seen in this close-up.

 

The background is complete, though I could make adjustments to tone and shape as the flower begins to take shape. I have included some suggestions of soil and organic matter but the background should 'pale' in importance once the flower is painted. It is interesting to paint a smaller painting with just one bloom after the previous two larger paintings. My next task will be to mask out the central stamens so that I can keep them light in tone at the end as this particular hibiscus has a very deep red heart.

I have started to add leaf colours to the hibiscus. They are not definite shapes but suggest the 'embossed' nature of the leaf of this particular plant. One of the shapes will be a more complete leaf but, other than that, I want the background to be secondary to the flower head.