Painting Sequence - Red Hollyhocks

One of my favorite things to see on an artist's blog are photos that shows how he/she created a painting. Here's a recent 16 x 20 oil painting of hollyhocks.

I toned my canvas with Cadmium Lemon Yellow acrylic paint. The gessoed board is from Richeson and acrylic primed. If your canvas is oil primed, don't use acrylic paint over it because the two don't adhere to each other. The general shapes were drawn with Rembrandt's red oxide oil paint. I painted the hollyhocks first because I wanted them to be the focus of the painting and make sure that the composition was interesting.

The leaves have a blue cast to them so I used a blue-gray mix to block in the leaf groupings and then added warmer greens to give them definition.

The leaves are starting to take shape. Added darker values in the flowers.

Pine trees are in the background but I wanted to keep the focus on the flowers so the background shapes were simplified into patterns of color and value. 

Added highlights to the flowers and continued developing the painting. 

Red Hollyhocks, 16 x 20, oil on board

At the end of the painting, I toned down the background greens and added variety to the gray/purple areas to give it depth and interest. This painting was a joy to paint with its bright colors and big brush strokes.

*The painting was in a Floral Show at the Richeson School of Art and Gallery and received an honorable mention.