SOLD TM8470 Diva 20×30 oil on panel

It started as a glimpse of the pond in mid-summer with just a few lily pads and some reflections, but I got carried away. I couldn’t resist putting in more, then more, until I had the whole staged setting, the Diva, and her back-up singers. Well, that’s how I think of them. Each lily at the pond seems to want to tell a story, and while I can only posit a fraction of what that story could be, it is fun to speculate. Details below. Enjoy!

TM8470 Diva – close-up of opening flower

TM8470 Diva – close-up of two admiring buds,

TM8470 Diva -detail of partially submerged bud

Technical painting notes: I first rolled a layer of blue-black then greenish black oil paint onto the panel, as one would with a monoprint, then used a plastic bag to push the paint around and create textures. Highlights were wiped out, and I selectively sprayed solvent and blotted to create more drips. I wanted the painting to “feel” wet since the subject ‘s environment was all water. I used a silicone scraper to indicate some of the edges of the lily pads, brushing a paper towel across the lines to soften them. When this stage was dry, I followed up with many layers of glaze to modulate the colors. From this point on, I switched to using a very soft watercolor wash brush so that I could blend areas of color seamlessly (a thin layer of Liquin, brushed on at the start of each day’s work, sped up drying times and facilitated the handling of soft edges). Some direct painting techniques were used to define the flowers, and the ripples and pads.