I decided to try the painting of the lillies at the C-6 boat ramp at Nimisila Reservoir again today.
If you want to see the evolution of this one, the first four paintings are discussed here, and paintings 5-7 are here.
Nimisila C-6: #8… Yuck
For this painting I wanted to try to focus on exaggerating the perspective in the image. I felt like my painting wave crash was successful because I kept the perspective in mind. Every painting I’ve done of these lillies has felt like layers of two dimensional paintings. I wanted to try to put the trees into perspective, and exaggerate the perspective of the lillies.
I don’t like the result. The trees don’t feel like they have any real weight, they just feel like a confused wash. And the nearest lillies were rendered with heavy pigment, but I used a small brush, leading them to feel muddy and dead.
The failure here drove me to re-examine the water lily paintings by Joseph Zbukvic that I find so inspiring. I decided to try to emulate his style in order to explore this composition some more.
Nimisila C-6: #9
Ok… I think I’m getting closer. I like the impact of the white flowers (painted with gouache) and I like the trees on the left. The lillies are too muddy, masking the whole thing feel dead. BUT, I think I’m close. I need to exaggerate the reflections in the water to help the bright parts of the water to read more like a glare. I also need to fiddle less with the lillies themselves. I’ll know better for the next one.
I don’t know how many times I’ll need to paint this before I feel like I got it right, but I don’t think I’ll be able to nail it on number 10. Eventually I want to paint this on a full sheet. Before I do, I need to be able to reliably paint it on a quarter sheet.
I think my next study will be on a quarter sheet split into quarters. Maybe cutting the size down will help me simplify, which is where I think this really needs to go.