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At the May workshop I taught in Michigan, this was the demonstration I painted one morning. It's rare that I get this far or do anything I'm all that pleased with under classroom conditions, but for whatever reason, this study came together without a lot of drama or boo-boos. After I got it back home and was able to look at it with a fresh eye, I decided to try adding some finishing touches and below you can view the step by step process. (Thanks to Olga and Kerry for early photos of the set up and painting in progress)

Here you can see me beginning the painting using a direct painting method. With the help of viewfinders, I have in mind a tall narrow composition but am working on the 11x14 linen panel I had brought with me. In order to establish the proportions and placement of a key object in the center of interest, I've drawn a box. This box concept allows me to avoid outlines and concentrate instead on the shapes and how they relate to one another. A third yellow flower was placed underneath the 2 main orchids in the set up but it kept falling down and didn't make it into this photo.

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Once I have a definite orchid shape I can to relate to, I begin carefully adding more shapes and colors. As the painting progresses and more elements are in place, the brushwork becomes looser and more intuitive because I can trust the visual information already established to guide my eye and my hand. As the painting proceeded I quickly taped off the areas I planned to leave out of the composition to help me visualize the values and composition more accurately. 

Here is my palette so you can see the pigments I was using -- only a few of the reds remain untouched. My habit is to lay out my palette exactly the same way regardless of the colors that dominate the subject I'm working on since I will often use those pigments in mixtures. Also, having the pigments in the same order saves me time and eliminates confusion which is especially valuable when I'm wanting to move quickly. More on the pigments I work with and why I've chosen them can be found at the May 2022 blog post titled MY PALETTE.

Above you can see the painting as it looked when I got it back home -- after I removed the tape but before I cropped the panel. Since I was in a hurry and just made a guess with the taping, I needed to add a little in width to make it a full 8" across. Overall I was pleased with the way it turned out but felt like the orchids appeared to have a more intense light source on them that dropped away a little too quickly to be plausible--something not as noticeable in these photos but I wanted to make some adjustments on nonetheless. What I was aiming for was to create stronger relationships between the flowers, leaves and background through a common light source.

                                                                                            14"x8"    oil on linen panel

This shows the demonstration after I made adjustments to the areas surrounding the orchids. These finishing touches are more extensive than I typically would do on a piece I planned out and completed in my studio. Still, almost all of the initial notes and edges in the center of interest remain untouched and I wouldn't have been tempted to carry the painting further if I didn't have confidence and trust in the first statements I put down. Every addition I made was carefully considered in terms of the abstraction and what options would benefit the overall movement, balance and unity. 

"Educate the eye before you educate the hand. The hand will become cunning enough when the eye has learned to see, whereas if the hand be educated before the eye, one may never see."  -- Carolus Duran