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| Yellow Flowers in an Asian Vase Acrylic on Canvas Panel 5 x 7 in/12.7 x 17.8 cm Copyright Byrne Smith 2018 |
Last week I worked several days on a landscape. I decided to let it rest for several days before I view it so that I will see it with fresh eyes and hopefully make a few changes, if necessary, to improve it. I recommend this approach for all paintings. Step away.
But while I was waiting I still had to paint. You know how that is. I decided to paint a small floral. I started painting small florals, which was a new motif for me, earlier this year.
The florals I paint all seem to have decidedly dark backgrounds. The ones I admire from other painters also seem to have dramatic lighting, which I'm still working on.
Today I want to talk about luminosity. I thought I knew what luminosity in painting was, light surrounded by dark, but I wanted a better artistic definition. This one came up first when I Googled luminosity defined: the glow or brightness in a piece of artwork; refers to the created light which can vary in gradation, and other ways (i.e. reflection and/or amount of diffraction or intensity). Yikes. I like my definition better.
Be that as it may, I tried to create luminosity in my floral with the lightness of the vase against the very dark background. My intent was to make the vase appear to glow in the ambient light, which I think I did.
Also, another fun fact I discovered while painting this--another way to make green. The background color I used was Payne's Gray, a bluish black. When I painted a very thinned down Cad Yellow Medium for the stems, I got a subtle translucent green, not to detract from the bold yellow flowers.
I hope you like it.
