Teresa Ramsey

Georgia, USA, oil, 20 x 16"

My Inspiration

Flowers are one of my favorite subjects and constantly search for a new material to paint. They are a great source of inspiration with their fragile and translucent petals, forms and texture that challenged to recreate them in my studio using oil paints.

One spring morning walking in the backyard of my house the sunlight shined into the Iris in the flower garden that call my attention; as an artist, immediately when for my camera before the sunlight changed and be able to capture the lights and shadows that the sun make in every possible angle of this beautiful iris petals.

My Design Strategy

Since my paintings are detail and realistic, I have a large library of images from parks, gardens and in this case from my flower garden. I expend considerable amount of time selecting the photo reference in the library in my computer as well as working with the color wheel. Using a computer software, I crop or zoom the image or images selected and highlights the details that I want to make the focus of the painting. Then I select the best canvas size to use to have the small amount of background information because I want to recreate and show to the viewer the feelings and emotion that I have the first time that I saw it.

My Working Process

I print my photos in black and white 8½-by-11-inch paper and I divide it into squares. I do the same with the 16-by-20inch canvas, if the composition has a lot of details, I subdivide more. With the help of a grid I transfer the reference photo to the canvas leaving the outside drawing of my composition.

I paint in layers (average four or five) using a table easel because allows me to paint with a steady hand for detail work.

I start to work from the background to the foreground and from the top to the bottom with a filbert No. 4 and very little amount of paint. I carefully blend each stroke into the next layer of color creating soft edges. I finished my layers emphasizing in the highlights and darks to make the painting pop.

Finalist

Contact Details

Email: terramsey@hotmail.com

Website: www.terramsey.com