Painting a Peony and Two Irises, One Petal at a Time

My paintings have long journeys as they come into being. They often start with a thought such as “Oooh, I REALLY want to paint a voluptuous peony.” From that moment of intense longing, it may be months – sometimes more than a year – before the painting is fully alive on the canvas.  

I was recently asked by International Artist Magazine to record my journey from idea to finished painting.  As I recorded my process, I was startled to realize how many steps a painting needs to come alive (at least for this slow artist).  

Let me share a few glimpses into the creation of “Victoria’s Beauty.”  This painting of a peony and two irises was a commission for a busy professional woman in San Francisco.  She wanted a painting that would remind her of the power of beauty, stillness and serenity.  

Here we go…

After toning the canvas, I began laying in the first iris.  At this point, I focused only on the form of the petals, not value and hue. I used paint straight from the tube, thinned with refined linseed oil.

I continued to block in all the flowers. This is the journeyman “work" part of a painting for me. Now I could see where I wanted to intensify shadows, deepen color and add detail in the glazed layers. 

Now came the FUN part – glazing. This is my favorite part of painting with oils.  Oil paint, when thinned with a medium, allows you to add layer after layer of luminous color. Light penetrates each glazed layer, revealing the prior layers. Glazed layers GLOW with light and color.  

In this image, I’ve also laid in the first layer of the background, added the stems and leaves and refined the value and detail of each flower using a thin layer of paint, lightly applied. 

I decided that the background was too cool, so I created a deep “eggplant” hue, which allowed the flowers to glow. I pushed and pulled here, popped the highlights with opaque paint and searched for depth in the shadows. 

And here is the final painting, “Victoria’s Beauty,” 24 x 36,” oil on linen (private collection).

“It was such a luscious joy to paint.”

I wrote in much more detail about my inspiration for the painting, materials and process in the International Artist Magazine article, and you can read it here if you would like the full scoop!