Pink is Not My Favorite Color
This past September, the BLP and I took a drive to Tacoma to visit the dahlia test gardens at Point Defiance Park. The roses, in a separate set of gardens adjacent, were in full bloom as well.
The sheer number of varieties, colors, sizes and shapes of all the flowers was exciting and overwhelming.
The day was lovely- sunny and warm- and the morning light was especially nice.
We took our time. There weren’t many people around, as park attendance everywhere has been down. It was easy to stay far apart from the few other visitors.
We took over a hundred photos each.
I spent days culling and editing until I had a bank of reference photos to work from. I’ve been using it for months to make paintings from, and I haven’t even scratched the surface.
This particular blossom caught my eye for its shape and swirl and the buds about to burst open behind it. It reminds me of a dancer in motion, hence the title.
I am usually not a huge fan of painting with pink. It is challenging to get it to look the way a flower looks, delicate and natural. The danger is always that pink can be insipid or look like stomach medicine. But lots of flowers are pink so I’m getting lots of practice.
The background on this one is a mixed black composed of red, blue, indigo, and even a little tiny bit of green. The overall effect in person is actually a very deep cold violet, but you can’t see that in this photo.
12/18/2020 @ 6:55 pm
You keep getting better and it’s interesting to hear a little of what all goes into it. I would have just thought black was black.
12/19/2020 @ 1:02 pm
Thanks Jonna. There are more coming. All that practice over the last few years is starting to have an effect. 🙂
12/19/2020 @ 8:17 am
I see why you chose the flower and I can actually tell about the black. It goes with the flower too well to be black.
Do you know the story of the Disney cruise ship hulls?
12/19/2020 @ 1:03 pm
See, that’s exactly why I do it!
No, I don’t know that story. (Is there a blog post about it coming?)
12/19/2020 @ 6:36 pm
Not necessary. I’ll do it here.
When Disney was working on their first cruise ship (they now have five I believe, at least that serve the US and they’re all the same colors), the designers were thinking about black hulls. Keep in mind that these are huge. But they weren’t comfortable with how forbidding the color was; they wanted to temper it somehow. There was a woman who worked in the office by the name of Monica and she happened to be wearing these really really dark navy jeans, almost black but not quite. They said That Color. We want That Color. The color is now called Monica Blue. The color of her jeans is now the color of five gigantic ocean liners.
I don’t know how familiar you are with Disney properties, land or sea. They always worry about stuff like this in exquisite detail. It’s one of the cool things about going to Disney anything – seeing just how much attention they pay to everything. Disney World is detailed enough but the ships because they’re more finite are done in more detail. Those designers could probably tell you what things looked like down to the square inch. If you ever get a chance to take one of their cruises, I’d recommend doing so for that reason alone.
How detail oriented is Disney? Detail oriented enough to have changed Japanese industrial thinking when they opened Disney Tokyo. When it opened, the Japanese were watching very closely to see what the failure rate would be. Statistically on something this big there have to be failures.
Except there weren’t. The opening was completely clean. Nothing went wrong. Nothing. This was considered to be mathematically impossible. But it happened. These guys are anal in a good way.
12/19/2020 @ 6:37 pm
My wife a while ago bought candles. What were they? They duplicated the scents Disney uses in the main lobby of each of their resorts. Each one has its own scent. I”m not making this up.
12/19/2020 @ 7:19 pm
I love the story of “Monica Blue”.
I’ve been to Disney World in Florida twice; the first time was in about 1984 (my first time on an airplane, too) and the second was in 2000 when the kids were all little. I was definitely impressed with how beautifully designed, maintained and well-run it was, both times.
(These days- and being so for many years now, actually- I am done with any trips that involve crowds, small children, and close quarters of any kind.)
12/19/2020 @ 9:29 am
Rossi, seeing these so much bigger makes a huge difference. Also, echoing Jonna that you’ve gotten so good with oils. I can remember when you started.
Are you still working on flowers? How many have you painted? I am a series kind of person too. After working on a long drawing in the morning, I usually do a short one in the afternoon, sort of an easy closer. I started mailing them to my dad over the summer, then to nursing home residents in North Carolina–they’d asked for penpals on instagram. My attention seems to hold for around fifty in a single subject, then I switch.
12/19/2020 @ 1:09 pm
Greenie, I am always fascinated by your series work.
I have a few series/themes behind me.
Barns: 24, Shoes: 26, Birds: 15, Boats: 26, Flowers: 48 and still going. I am not done with flowers!
09/25/2022 @ 3:10 pm
A ROSE GUASTELLA IS
A ROSE GUASTELLA!
JP Hart
(Vannie is going on beautifully ’bout the Philosopher’s Stone … Student & me are distributing KFC big buckets to those who slept in the rain … gas light is on … protagonist Dennis Jacobian pitches in with the sweet potatoe waffle fries …. we are the champions, no?)
09/28/2022 @ 2:46 pm
Whoo hoo JP Hart!!