I wanted to spend less time on my painting today, so I decided to keep it simple. I painted this apple. (You can actually see the apple to the right of the canvas.)
While the apple turned out "ok," I also wanted to portray the table, but couldn't really get wood grain down. That's a good lesson for tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll just try to paint the table.
I have never realized how important the background really is. I think it was wrong of me yesterday to use that bright green in the background of the Bacardi bottle. It was just too much. All of the artists work that I like has more subtle backgrounds.
I did however paint looser on the background and used a crosshatch type pattern that I liked. I need smaller canvases! I have "paint all your canvas" syndrome, so if I'm going to paint every day, I need less ground to cover!
Also today I gessoed the board before painting. It made a huge difference! Even though the packaging said it was gessoed, the extra coat made it well worthwhile. While I was at it, I painted a background tone (kind of a muted orange) on a couple of canvases. I want to try painting on those and letting the background color add depth.
I see now after looking at the photo above that there is the slightest hint of a reflection of the apple on the table and the table has much more brown in it. Maybe I'll try working from a picture, because I seem to see more looking at it not in "real life."
