ROSE OF ULTRAMARINE - TWO AND THREE

Touched some copper iridescent pigment to the eggs and the metal of the lamp, then amped up the color (Perylene Maroon) to the pillow (still damp here so we'll see how it fades as it dries).

Put some pale turquoise green behind the flowers and pillow and then marked some lines in the space with watercolor pencil.  Drew around the lines, the sugar bowl, creamer, and plate with a Sepia watercolor marker (Winsor Newton) and bled that out a bit with clean water.  Now what?  That pillow dried okay - not too dull or faded but I really had to go in with intense color to get it right.



I think I'll finish this one and return to the older ones that aren't quite right and see what I can do - then take some time away from the still lifes for a while.  

Elizabeth asked me why I put in the things I do - in order to teach her about still life painting/composition.  But all I can say is it looks like I break several rules and use whatever comes to mind, thinking about shapes and textures and overlapping things a bit, leaving some space, trying not to be too heavy all around, etc.  I guess I'm working my way into still life! ha ha  I have a couple I think are good - but some are really bad, too, so still a work in progress.  Sorry I couldn't be more help, Elizabeth, but I'm just going by intuition in some ways but also I have learned a bit about composition and shapes and leading the eye around a painting (from years ago lessons).  (The bag behind the lamp was just put there as a shape, nothing more, then I changed the color because I thought the gold looked good behind the rosey pink and gold of the lamp - no other reason.  The bird made me think of the eggs - from my imagination; and the color is the bronzey gold that's on the lamp metal bits so tied that in.  That's about all and maybe I should be able to say more and I can't because I'm not taking enough time to plan?)