Thursday, June 28, 2012

"Red Roses in a Ceramic Pitcher"

Here is my new painting, in oil, on an 18 by 24 inch canvas.



Here are the notes I've taken over time as I have painted it:

For session one, I did the under-painting. Unlike previous still-lifes, where I've primarily use transparent oxide brown as the main pigment, this time I used a half and half mixture of transparent oxide brown and ultramarine blue. I like my under-paintings warm, but I felt that the straight transparent oxide brown was too warm. I did use more of the pigment in the wooden table, however, because I felt that that was appropriate. For the roses, I used terra rosa.

For session two, I wanted to do the background. At first, I mixed up cadmium yellow and ultramarine blue, and tried to cut that with transparent oxide brown. That, however was too yellow, so I mixed some permanent green medium to pump up the green a bit.

Next, for session two, I worked on the pitcher and bowl. I got that to a place that I am satisfied with.

Session three brought me to the roses. The trouble I had with the roses is making them light enough. I used cadmium red medium, and I wish I had a cadmium red light. I tried to use titanium white to lighten them up, but that made it too pink. I tried to use cadmium yellow to lighten them up, but that made them too orange. They are the way they are, I guess. I just wish the value was lighter.

For session four, I added a reflection to the table, added the missing legs for the table, fixed one of the leaves that was too cool, and that was about it. It might be done. I might sit on it for the rest of the week and see if there is anything I want to change.

Here are links to images for each session to show the progress over time:

Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Session 4
Final

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Under-drawing

This is the under-drawing for my new painting: