Tag: daffodils

Daffodil Season, 3

More daffodils!  This time I did a value sketch before I began to paint.  I think it did help me with the final painting.  The sketch is not to scale for the picture, but it does give the areas of light and dark.   You can see the light is sort of to the left, and perhaps a bit to the front.

Next, the basic outline of the daffodils on the paper.

Finally, the painting itself.  It’s better in some ways than the earlier ones I did, but it just isn’t what I want to accomplish.  Parts of it look forced – specifically, the flowers.  Still there is a better sense of painterly-ness here!  And, the value sketch helped a lot.

Currently I am using Canson XL paper, which is a student grade paper.  For really wet washes, it doesn’t work that well, yet I find it quite to my liking as a practice paper for the most part.

More Daffodils

I felt like a tourist when I headed out to the botanical garden a few weeks ago.  I had my Olympus XA4, my Kodak Retina IIIc for its maiden voyage, and the Perkeo II loaded with Fuji Neopan 400.  I am so impressed with this film – the blacks are black, and the whites are white.  I didn’t have an orange or red filter with me, so some pictures were not what I would have liked to see; still, the detail and beauty of the film is seen here (and the Perkeo is no slouch, either).  Sadly, Neopan in this form is no longer made – the C-41 form – although Acros is available.

What Once Was

What Once Was
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles today
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And, while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

                           –Robert Herrick