Lily in the Flower Garden

"Lily in the Flower Garden", oil on canvas, 30" x 20", June 2018

I was riding in to work with my wife and I said "I would like to do a painting of a little girl in a flower garden. Do you know who could model for me?" She mentioned "Lily" as if I was a moron for not thinking of it myself! Lily is a young lady (6yrs), who is as precocious as they come, and the daughter of my daughters best friend. Lily modeled for me and I shot about 70 photos late in the afternoon at The Mauldin House in Clarkesville, Ga. This was my favorite pose of the bunch, although I expect I will do others that came in a very close second. I decided on a 30"wide X 20" tall canvas. I considered using hardboard because I wanted a lot of detail, but decided this type painting would be better on the more traditional surface.

This is the initial drawing and oil wash I did. I drew it off freehand, hoping I could do it without gridding the canvas. ...

I even went so far as to begin adding color before I realized that something was completely wrong with the drawing (especially after my wife said she looked like an old lady). I wiped off as much as I could to get back down to a clean canvas and drew a grid.

OK, here are the changes I made. The point of showing this is so that artists can see it isn't all that horrible to change a painting. I raised the flowers and hand, also slimmed the hand a bit.
I gridded the painting with 3" squares and got everything in its proper place. For the face, I gridded in even smaller increments of 1" squares to get the face as accurate as I could. This is actually supposed to look like Lily after all. If it wasn't supposed to look like anyone in particular then none of this would have been necessary. I lowered the shoulder so she wouldn't look hunched, and I made the hat fit her head. Other than that, everything stayed the same...

I am trying to use more paint than I normally do. This whole process seems different. To be honest, I wing every painting I do. I never really know how I am going to do it until I begin. I will probably still layer with glazes like normal, but overall I am applying more paint, and using a sort of double load technique where one side of the brush has one color and I flip the brush and load another color and try to mix them on the canvas, yet not over blend. It is a struggle! For this session I am using a mixture of Red Earth and Ultramarine Blue with Zinc White mixed for various lighter shades.

I have the background pretty far along. For the greens I am using Sap Green, Pthalo Green, a dark mixture of Pthalo Green and Alizarin Crimson, and Naples yellow light, the light areas are mostly Gamblin Portland Cool Gray.
I also worked on the skin . I had to really work to figure out the colors of the skin. Everything I was mixing was too warm. I finally mixed Alizarin Crimson, Earth Red, and Ultramarine Blue. I KNOW! what? Yeah, that is the mixture that finally got me what the cool skin tones I needed. I mixed two batches, one with more Alizarin and one with more Ultramarine, then added white to lighten both. I also used Yellow Ochre, Red Earth and Ultramarine for a warmer brown. Funny what colors can do

I used these brushes to do the painting, going from largest to smallest. The tiny brush was used on details of the eyes and mouth and a few of the leave veins. The middle filbert was used extensively almost everywhere toward the end of the painting.

The palette is set up this way as usual. The colors I used most are from top left clockwise: Titanium White, Cad Yellow Light, Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Alizarin Crimson, Crimson Redd, Cadmium Orange, Vermillion, Burnt Sienna, Transparent Earth Red, Transparent earth brown (didn't use that much, was a little too warm), Burnt Umber, Cobalt Violet, Diox Purple, Manganese Blue, Ultramarine Blue (a lot), Pthalo Blue (not much), Prussian Blue,, Pthalo Green, Sap Green, May Green, Terre Verte (green earth), Black (almost none) and grays mixes.

I have the leaves blocked in for the plant. I am having to make this up or rely on other photos taken in different light because that part was blurred out. I hope I get the lighting right! The greens are the same ones I used for the background, just lighter tones.

I decided to make Lily reaching for a butterfly instead of a random leaf. I hope it looks believable. If you look back you will notice that the leaf she was painting to was sort of shaped like a butterfly anyway. I tried to get a sense of back lighting and see through wings. Not many colors here; black mix, naples yellow light, cadmium yellow, yellow ochre.

Well, I want to keep noodling with the painting but I think it is done. IDK. I fleshed out all the leaves of the plant, trying to keep the detailed ones near the center towards Lily. I may do a glaze or two to add some depth, but I could stop here and be happy probably. Overall, I am very pleased with the way this has turned out.

I did end up doing a little bit of glazing. I added a bit of contrast behind the blooms covering the dress. I added a slight rouge to the cheek, and glazed a shadow on the neck line of the dress. There are a couple of spots in the bush, but not much. It's is finished! I love the way the sleeves turned out in particular.