Roseville collection

I decided I wanted to do another in the Roseville vase/flowers series, but this time with a much smaller vase. So instead of using a 12x16-inch board, I went with a 12x12 cradle board. I knew I wanted to use my tiny Columbine vase in the blue-green shades, and to fill it with blue Plumbago from the bush in my front yard, but I wasn't sure what else I wanted to include.

Going with those themes, I thought about background and stenciling, went through my collection, and ended up painting the cradle board a warmish mushroom brown color as a ground (Raw Umber + White + Titan Green Pale). Then I stenciled flowers and leaves in tight patterns all over the face of the cradle board in shades of turquoise, light Ultramarine blue, Titan Buff, and Prussian blue. I gave that 10 minutes to dry, and then glazed over all of it with Titan Green Pale, a barely-there celery shade, to back off the strong colors of the stenciling and mute the mushroom background as well. This time I was going for more of an overall wallpaper effect.

 

Upon consideration, I decided I would also stencil the edges of the cradle board with the floral theme in the same colors, but would not glaze over them, allowing them to be a more distinctive iteration of the pattern as a sort of frame to the whole. That was a bit challenging—I had to hold the cradle board at an angle, while holding the stencil in place with the same hand and pouncing over the stencil with the other hand. I had one side that didn't turn out too successfully, so I figured I'd just put that one on the bottom! In the end I glazed the four sides as well, just to tone down and blend the colors together, although I left them a bit stronger than the treatment for the background itself, which I glazed over twice.

I'm afraid I have seen the best of the plumbago for the season, and there was very little left by the time I finally got around to cutting it (also, my pruning-mad gardener has been at work!), so I added in a few small white roses to fill out the bouquet. The columbine on the face of this vase is less yellow and more cream-white, so that seemed to work.

I always take a photo of the vase of flowers I'm planning to paint, because the flowers deteriorate daily once they are cut, even well supplied with water and in the cool temperature inside my house (no heater yet), so I need the static reference. I'm especially glad of that this time: When I got up the next morning after I cut the flowers and put them in the vase, the plumbago had already wilted and folded in on itself, so I was especially reliant on my photo to make the painting.

I suffered a fair amount of frustration getting ready to paint this: I first tried drawing with pencil, but it didn't show up over the busy background, so then I had the idea of doing a tracing using pan pastels. I printed the photo at the size I wanted to work, applied dark gray pan pastel to the back of it, and then taped it to the cradle board and penciled firmly over the picture outlines. But when I took the picture off, the tracing hardly showed at all! I wiped it clean and tried with a bright orange color, and that was even worse. White pan pastel didn't work either. I finally went back to the pencil, and made do, but this one was more reliant on eye-balling pretty much everything but the shape of the vase and a few flowers and leaves that managed to stand out against the background. It ultimately turned out okay, but I spent a lot more time than usual being fussy and adding more details as I went.

Ironically with these paintings, it always seems to be the surface (table top or whatever) and the shadow that are the most challenging parts of all, even though you would think you could just slap them down in 15 minutes or so. I painted and repainted this surface, going darker, then glazing lighter again, until I got it to a color and texture that read against the background without being too obtrusive; and then I redid the shadow about eight times, introducing more raw umber and prussian blue as I went and moderating it with a little of the Titan Green Pale.

This one is really about the textures, and I'm happy with the amount of show-through on the background and also with the more painterly, slightly less precise vase and flowers. The subtle colors worked just the way I wanted them to, and the cradle board, with the sides showing the pattern, will be beautiful when I hang it on a wall. I may have to keep this one for myself!

"Plumbago Columbine," stencil, pencil, and acrylics on wooden cradle board, 12x12 inches.