Under the Gazebo at Scituate Harbor

Painting Geraniums at Scituate Harbor

The Scituate Harbor parking area has a large gazebo which also functions as a paint out shelter for those "iffy" weather days.    I love the scene here, seagulls, people, boats of all shapes and sizes, and beachhouses in the distance.    While I considered all those subjects for my painting, I decided to just start with the geraniums that were planted at the edge of the gazebo, and simply enjoy the setting and my painting friends.

The day was overcast, but beyond that, the flowers were on the darker, northside of the gazebo, making the values of my colors closer in range.    My plan was to capture these muted, gray day flowers, and upon my return to the studio, decide if I should lighten it up.

I started with my darkest greens, the crevices down between the lower leaves.  Next I made a dark, cool blue for the next darkest leaves.   The brightest leaves were a warm green which I made from viridian green and cadmium yellow light.  I picked a couple of leaves to develop more detail on, specifically the ruffled ringed pattern.

For the red geranium flowers I used cadmium red light straight from the tube.   I made a couple of darker, cooler shades of red by mixing some alizarin crimson to cad red light for the shaded flower petals.   I wanted to make sure that I included the faded blooms as well as the fresh new growth.   The spent flowers were dark violet blue.

We did an informal critique and I got some nice objective feedback on my spent flowers.   They were too choppy and I agreed.   I fixed them, I think. 

As was mentioned earlier, I reserved the right to bring up the values of my brighter hues.   I am sure that I can improve the composition by doing that.   Next view of this improved painting will be on my website of finished paintings.   www.vezinart.com