Blondheim Art Original Paintings

Palms Bayou
12x16 inches
oil on panl

See my paintings HERE

Art Notes HERE

My next Open Studio Class is this Sunday, September 16, 2007 from 2-6 PM Studio Fee: 20.00 Please come and bring your projcts. We will have fun working on them together. Email me with any questions: lindablondheim12@hotmail.com




Painters Tip

Let's talk about Palms.

Palm trees are a favorite subject for patrons here in the South. They can't get enough of them. Neither can I. I never tire of painting them because they are so interesting. They have many colors, textures and shapes. We now have many imported palms from around the world as well as our indiginous varieties.

I like to lay in the trunk height first, adding the basic shape of the canopy at the top. I then will consider that there will be a dark shadow at the top of the trunk area because of the canopy above it. I like to make that shadow area a bit purply right under the canopy. There Will be a shadow on the trunk on the side away from the light. There will usually be a fair amount of texture on the trunk as well. Some areas will be broken up light and shadow.

When I start the canopy area, I like to make a dark mass low in the canopy. The lighter tip of the fronds will be in the area of the most sunlight. It will be a warm light green, the darker value will be cool dark greens.

There are often dead fronds hanging down from the bottom where they have not fallen off or have not been trimmed. Those are usually tan or light brown with a bit of gray here and there. They also tend to be a fairly light color except were shadows hit them.

It is also very important to remember that foreshortening is necessary to make the palm trees look three dimensional. The fronds coming toward you will need to be foreshortened.

Don’t forget that there will be sky holes in some of the palm canopies. Some palms grow densely and others more open and airy. It is best to make the sky hole color a half shade darker than the actual sky. You don’t want the sky holes to look pasted on.