Artist Renee Lammers

    It was more difficult this morning deciding on a rose bush to paint.  All the rose bushes

looked perfect.

    I drew three thumbnail sketches before committing to this composition.  I enlarged

the roses so the space between the roses were minimal.  Otherwise the green leaves would

have taken up most of the space becoming the center of interest.  The roses

 would have appeared like staccatto notes making your eye bounce around terribly. I painted

in the large shapes first.  I didn't cover all of the copper as I normally do.  I started painting

details right away.  I should not have done this. 

    I painted many different darks thickly.  Normally I would have kept my darks thin.

What to do?  What to do!

   I took my palette knife and scratched out some dark paint.  This looked like a mess

but at least the dark paint was thinned out!  I never use the palette knife while working.

    I softened the edges.  This looked a little better than

before.  I added too much cadmium red light to the darks which is very opaque.

Not a good idea. 

    For some reason I decided to add some highlights to the pink roses before I even

had the background or leaves painted!  Not too smart.

    Now I tried to go into each rose to create form.  The sunlight was strong then it would

be gone.  I was so lost trying to draw the rose's petals. 

    I finally discovered the background was still copper!  I painted in the background

finally making sure all four sides were different.  I decided to restate the darks.

    I just didn't like the painting.  I was frustrated.  I decided to soften the background

and then continued to soften the distant roses.  I should have stopped here.  Now

wiping down the painting seemed like a great idea.  I have a cleaned piece of copper

ready to paint tomorrow. 

    What a beautiful complex rose.  I am glad I didn't decide to paint this rose!  What

did I learn?  

                       1.  Have a small breakfast first. 

                      2.  Don't get started on any details.  Make sure the big poster shapes are painted first. 

                      3.  Paint the darks thinnly and transparently.

                      4.  Don't start on the greens too late and keep them simple.

                       5.  Don't get too excited about painting.  You must relax so you can concentrate and

make great decisions. 

                       6.  Don't worry if you don't get a painting.  There is always tomorrow.

    The palette knife can be used to scrape the paint off but it may be best done minimally.

   Remember to paint the shapes before the details!  

   Robert reports Poppy came upstairs to sleep next to him at 2am in the morning.  She

slept all night long on the rug.  They received the box of dog toys last night.  They played very hard.

The chicken dog toy was torn apart the first night!  Have a good night.