Giant Commission DETAIL - with process shots of detail area

Roses in Hermann Park (DETAIL)

This is an approximately 24" x 18" section of 

the 10 foot painting seen below.

Roses in Hermann Park, 5 foot x 10 foot commission

Detail is of bottom left corner.

If you have not been following my recent blog posts, I painted this 10 foot painting for Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. It's the first of three, and all will hang in the lobby of the hospital's new North Tower. One frustrating thing for me is showing this work in such a drastically reduced, postage stamp size. While the internet is great, and without it I couldn't share at all, the painting is meant to be experienced in person. I wish, I wish...

So... these detail shots will bring you closer in, where you can see a little more evidence of my brushwork and color nuances that just can't be captured in the photo of the whole painting. The camera has to be set up too far away to get those details.

Below are process shots of the flowers on lower left side... I thought it might be interesting to document the roses as they emerged. (You will also notice that the figures changed at the very end!) 

Working so much larger requires a more deliberate and controlled approach than when working small, simply because of the scale. I wanted this area to have loose, expressive marks to indicate the flowers. Without getting too detailed, I treated them as a mass, with simple lights and darks. I stained the flower spots pink as place holders, to remember where I wanted to put them.

I built up the color with simple shapes, and loose lights and darks.

Developing a passage that would "read" and still feel expressive is tricky. In a small painting, a "pop of light" can be indicated by a single stroke. Not so, at this scale. That same pop of light requires many more marks to say the same thing.

An artist friend and I were discussing this challenge (sometimes frustration?) of adapting our mark-making for working in such a large format. We concluded that it's best to simply accept it as a completely different animal in that way. AND... these big paintings? They really do want to be seen up close and personal! ;)