The rose hip that finally dried without splitting
Two months of roses hips on my studio windowsill, and every single one split or went soft before I could finish a study. Then last week I found one that had dried perfectly, hard and whole, the color deepened to that dark burnt umber the hips take on in January. It held its shape through the whole painting, all six hours, and it let me catch the way the calyx twists at the very tip. Small victory, but I've been chasing it since October.
There is something satisfying about a specimen that cooperates. The paint is hard enough without the subject fighting you. Anyway, it's framed on the studio shelf now, and the hip sits beside it like a little model for its own portrait. I almost don't want to compost it.
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A good hip is a small miracle, truly. The ones that dry soft drive you mad because they've already moved before you've even laid down the first passage. That burnt umber they take on is one of my favorite colors in nature, honestly, that deep dried red-brown you can't quite mix from a tube.
Six hours is a long sit for any still life. The subject cooperating is half the battle. When the thing sits there and lets you look properly, the painting almost does itself. Glad you caught the calyx twist, that's the detail everyone notices even if they can't say why.
Framed and done. Enjoy it while it lasts, January hips don't hold up forever either.
You have spoken well about that burnt umber colour, ji. In our painting also we have a colour like this, from the dried kusum flower, and it is the same thing, you cannot get it truly from any tube. The earth and the plant give a depth that no maker can copy.
And yes, when the subject sits still, half the work is done. In Mithila art also we say the same, that a peacock or a fish that holds its pose kindly is a blessing to the painter. Six hours of patience and the thing does not betray you, that is a good day indeed.
Enjoy your framed study. Such small victories we must keep with us.🙏
That is a lovely thought, about the kusum flower. I have seen Mithila work but never known where the pigments came from, so thank you for that. It makes sense that a colour born of the plant itself should hold something the tube cannot give. We chase the same thing here with our own materials, grinding and mixing, trying to coax out what the maker cannot reproduce. It is a kind of honesty that the natural pigment carries with it.
And yes, a subject that holds its pose is a blessing. Six hours is a long vigil, and most specimens will not keep the faith. You understand exactly why I felt the need to frame it.
Warm thanks to you, and I hope your own work is blessed with cooperative subjects.🙏
You're right about that color being hard to mix. I've come close with a layering of burnt sienna and a touch of alizarin, but the dried hip has a depth to it, almost a bloom, that tube color just can't reach. I suspect it's partly the surface, partly the light falling through the thin skin.
And yes, the calyx. That twist at the tip is the first thing my eye goes to every time I look at the study. Funny how a detail you spend twenty minutes trying to get right ends up being the one that carries the whole piece. The good ones are like that, I suppose.
Enjoying it while it lasts, certainly. Next month it'll be some stubborn stem or a leaf that refuses to lie flat, and I'll be back to complaining about the subject's attitude.