The Fogpatch dahlia: Finding the right light, one petal at a time

The piece in progress. I always start from the center.

Before the first brushstroke on the actual painting, I spent quiet mornings with small studies—just me, some paper, and a handful of hopeful colors. This dahlia for the Fogpatch Landscapes commission wasn’t going to be fast. It needed a palette that felt like it belonged in early light—soft, shifting, alive.

Testing a selection of cool shadows—each mix tells me something different.

So I began with shadows. I tried quinacridone burnt umber, perylene violet, dioxazine purple, ultramarine blue, quinacridone violet—sometimes even the same pigment from different makers, just to see how the undertones or granulation would change. Some were cooler, some warmer. Some settled gently into the paper; others pushed forward and neutralized the highlights more than I wanted. I tracked everything. Every mix. Every surprise. Because when the moment comes to scale up, I want to be painting, not guessing.

Detailed notes on shadows and highlights—tracking every shift in color and temperature.

The highlights took their own kind of care. Hansa yellow deep, quinacridone lilac, perinone orange, a little sap green. I needed them to bring breath into the flower, not noise. The goal was to keep the palette open and luminous—each color holding space for the others without dulling them down.

Those messy pages of test blooms are where everything begins. They help me listen before I speak in paint. By the time I move to the final composition, the color relationships feel familiar—like I’ve walked this path before, but now I know which turns to take.

And maybe that’s the heart of this kind of work:
What would happen if we gave our choices more time to unfold before rushing toward the finish?

The limited palette of key colors, properly diluted and ready to begin.