When Sarah Lamb’s realistic still life painting of flowers caught our eye, we reached out to learn more about her process, which she shares in this step-by-step of “Camellia.”
My Still Life Painting Process: “Camellia”
By Sarah Lamb
I always paint my smaller works on an L600 art panel from New Traditions Art. It is a nice Belgian fine linen that has been adhered to foam core. Very easy to cut to size. The first image (below) is the underpainting with raw umber. I do a quick sketch with the raw umber because it is a nice neutral. I tone the canvas to a medium to light value before I start to draw with paint.
In the second image, I have started to put in the background and foreground just to get the color scheme going. I’m not sure how long these flowers are going to last as I brought them in quickly before the freeze came.
In the rest of the pictures, I’m fine-tuning the drawing and trying to keep within the size of the panel I started on. I should have started on a little bit bigger panel, but I was halfway through when I decided that! I tend to paint a little bit of life-size, so this kept me in line.
Helpful Links
- Visit Sarah Lamb’s website
- Read more articles on still life painting
- Learn more techniques at the 5th Annual Realism Live online art conference, November 2024
