"Market Flowers"--Gregg Kreutz' instructional video

Review of "Market Flowers" , a video in the art instruction collection of the Southbury Library, featuring Gregg Kreutz, produced by Liliedahl Productions.

Rating:   5 out of 5 Paint Brushes, with 5 highest.  

Subject matter--a blue and white vase with red, yellow and white flowers.

Normally a spot in his workshops goes for $650 to $850, or you can study with Gregg at the Art Students League in NYC, driving two hours each way, parking etc--the DVD is a bargain!  Of course you don't get the critiques, and you have to wing it on the color mixtures, but he very calmly explains his "concept" and shows you step by step how he gets there.  If you are a bit off on the color, it doesn't really matter. The DVD's can be used either in a computer or in a DVD player.

Pluses

Very calm, well-paced delivery of info by Gregg.  Very good starting points.  The camera work is excellent, and the sound is absolutely clear.  There is no scratchy brush noise interference.  Very professionally done.  Good shots of the set up, and his palette and painting.

Minuses

Viewer does not have same closeup view of flower arrangement that painter does.  (Camera angle.)  Tricky to "paint along", as he is easy to follow as a viewer, hard to keep up with painting.

The sequence....

The artist starts with a toned canvas--a greenish mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt umber and medium.  Here's my version:

He draws a simple form on the canvas, showing the movement of light --his main concept--over and down the flowers, finally reaching the flowers resting on the wooden tabletop.   Here's mine: 

He then blocks in some of the background with ultramarine blue, burnt umber, a touch of cadmium yellow, a drop of white and turpentine.  

Next he adds the shadow color on the white vase and the white flowers, consisting of ultramarine, orange, white, and a touch of cadmium red. He does the same with the yellow flowers shadows, and the red flowers.  This is a very important step, as the whole painting hinges on being able to read the basic shapes at a distance.  (Since you are not really painting a close up of flowers and their specific details.)  The camera really picked up a lot of blue pigment in those vase shadows--on the canvas it looks more blue gray.

   

Once he has put in the shadows, without details, then he begins to add the lights, reserving the whitest highlights for the very end.  This is a magical moment, because the interplay between the shadows and lights really almost completes the painting, details or no.  He describes "zoning" in a painting-- deciding whether an element is mostly dark with some light, or mostly light with some dark to simplify how you approach it.  Along the way Kreutz suggests the viewer treat each stroke as if it were a final stroke.  Also, most often he strokes the brush from the tip of the petal inward to the center of the flower.  Be sure to use a toned down "white" on the front of the vase, so that later when you add the highlights, they will show up.  Here is my version at the end of the first DVD (there are 2 discs.)

Although the video was very well done, and I enjoyed just watching, I felt compelled to pick up the brush and paint along, and that was fairly difficult, with much pausing of the DVD, much backtracking to catch the strokes.  It seemed so easy to follow when I was just watching!  In the end, I liked the outcome, though I agree with Kreutz that flower painters are unfairly maligned--flowers are very demanding as a subject--easy to get lost in all the petals.  The biggest disconnect was in actually seeing the setup.  His viewing angle is totally different from our viewing angle when the camera shows the closeups of the vase and flowers.  We really are not meant to be painting details anyway, but the urge is ever present.  I ended up taking photos of the TV screen, and popping them on the computer, so that I did not wear out the DVD. 

Some closeups of the actual flowers shot from my TV screen--these appear at the very end of the first DVD:

I was tempted to go out and buy a similar  flowers and refine the shapes, but really felt that focusing on minute details was not the point of the exercise.  With the artist's permission, I have posted the photographs I took, shot from the TV on my blog, along with his  palette and the mixtures he suggests.

Give it a try!

Ellie Boyd

The final version on display in the Southbury Library next to the collection of art videos--with me, and  fellow artist/librarian Eileen Sudol:

You can watch a 5 minute clip of the video on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opfgzfV4Fko

Kreutz' palette (he doesn't say what mfg paint, but probably Vasari):

Permalba White (I used Gamblin Quickdrying White, a combo of Flake and Titanium.)

Cadmium Yellow Pale

Cadmium Yellow Deep

Cadmium Red Light

Venetian Red

Alizarin Crimson

Burnt Siena

Burnt Umber

Ultramarine Blue

Ivory Black

Turpentine (I use Gamsol OMS)

Maroger Medium (great stuff, but if you don't have good ventilation, or are susceptible to fumes, use a Gamblin substitute, or M. Graham Walnut Oil Alkyd Medium.)

He uses large, longhandled filbert brushes, and one small detail brush. (Probably Trekell brushes.)

A few of the  mixtures to get you started: 

Background:  Ultramarine Blue + Burnt Umber + Cad Yellow + drop of White + turpentine or OMS

White shadows:  Ultramarine Blue + Cad Yellow Deep + White + Cad Red

Yellow shadows:  Cad Yellow Pale + Cad Yellow Deep + Ultramarine Blue + Red

Red shadows:  Ultramarine Blue + Cad Red + Alizarin + a touch of white

My set up:

You may notice that my iPhone is to the left of the canvas, attached to a tripod with a "GLIF"--a handy little gadget my son bought me for Christmas.  I had hoped to just use those little reference photos, but ended up putting them on a larger monitor.  Also, I don't have North light, and was painting under very bright florescents.  The painting reads pretty well!