Sunflower and Zinnia Study

Sunflower and Zinnia Study/ oil on canvas board/ 5 x 7/

Often, when there are long absences on this blog, there is a trail of ripped paper or wiped canvases at my house as I struggle to work on some new thing that I desperately want to master.

I think this painting may be a breakthrough for me. The recent goals (in oil) are CLEAN color and flowers that don't look "pasted on".
Okay, so "clean color"'
You have to put clean fresh color, mixed to exactly the right color pieces from your palette onto the right place on a clean canvas. That means, when the color is not correct (and you tell this by looking, then looking, then looking), you have to wipe back to the white of the canvas and reapply the correct color. If you try to "mix it" on the canvas to the correct color, it will grow dull (faster if you are using opaques and really greyed out if there are whites in your mixtures).
To be able to wipe back to white, I like the canvas surface I posted last time. I also begin my painting by applying a thin (and wiped) layer of gambol or medium.
The"unpasted part" is harder (for me) and I will write about that next time.

Cross your fingers that this is integrated and that I am truly on a path forward...