The first Wipe-Out

I don't know why roses are such a struggle for me. I think I am trying to paint too many details. I was not happy with this one so I wiped it off after fiddling with it for way too long. And if you know anything about knife painting with oils--you can't fiddle. There is not really enough contrast in the leaves and the pedals are wrong and well...it's a goner.

It's really not that I don't know how to paint something because I do. What I am trying to learn to do is to determine the colors in the photo or still life (getting it on the canvas is another story...) then using a limited palette of lemon yellow, cad yellow lit, cad red med, perm rose, aliz crimson, ultra blue, phthalo blue, burnt umber and white...and usually yellow ochre too, and paint it.

Maybe I was doing fine just painting intuitively without any rules of color, cool and warm, values and shades. I think maybe this is using too much of my left brain so maybe that's why I am struggling so much. I don't know the answer to that one yet.  I am hoping that after my left brain learns it it will click over to the intuitive right brain. But I have to learn it first.

The picture is nice though.

If I want to paint roses I need to just sit down and draw them first.