A Painting A Day

So here's todays effort. It's very abstract I think. Honestly I just didn't want to fuss too much over the details. The challenge here was not just the garlic, but also the double shadows. There was reflected light off the back of them and light from the side. In the class I've been taking we use two brushes. One for the lights (anything that will have white in it) and one for the darks. That's really important. I just can't get those darkest darks if there is any white in the brush. I've noticed lately that my paintings are very dark, and so was trying to lighten this one up a bit. So I didn't really stay true to the background which was black. I think it might be time to invest in some colored tablecloths! Overall I'm happy with todays painting. I am trying to keep it loose and I think I achieved that today. Now tomorrow... that's another story!

It was cold and rainy today, so it was wonderful to have some sunshine in art class! I have a little more to do to finish this, and will probably follow up on it later today. :) I am looking forward to the day when I actually want to sign my paintings. I think with today's effort I'm feeling closer. Today was the last of our 6 classes, but I start back up again next week with a special class on color. I'm so looking forward to that. Color has always intimidated me, but I'm a big believer in facing your fears. What's the worst that could happen? Ha!

Todays painting was a study in orange. A bright orange bell pepper and two tangerines (who honestly had seen better days).

It was interesting to read about the color online today:

I'm trying to get in the habit of painting a little each day. I went back to Carole Marine's web site and thought it's taken her over 500 paintings to get to where she is today. I have my work cut out for me! But I do believe that if I do a little each day, I will improve. These tomatoes are really not good, but I want to post even my bad efforts so I can see where I am a year from now. :)

I just had to pick up the paintbrush. I meant to do it earlier, but did this late tonight. It was hard to judge the values with it being so dark. The apple was really easy, but the mug was a different story. I was painting a white cup on a black countertop. There didn't seem to be enough contrast in the color, but I was trying to paint what I saw, and that coffee mug didn't seem to have very much white on it at all. Ha! I have read that white in shadow is darker than black in light.

Yesterday I worked more on a painting that I have been working on "on and off for a while now. It's far from finished, but want to take a snapshot in time of the work in progress. It has a long way to go still! Will post again when I get further along.

I never realized how hard it is to paint eggs! I will have to revisit them because these are pretty sorry excuses for eggs. The one on the right "might" pass for an egg, but the other one has absolutely no definition.

I was proud of the reflection of the eggs in the black kettle. At least I can find one redeeming quality in the effort! Ha!

I wasn't really happy with my grapes today, but I didn't spend a lot of time on them. I thought the glass turned out fairly well.

I really like the method we use in class, which is start by outlining all the shapes - using a mixture of ultramarine blue and transparent oxide red. Then we make our shadows by taking the color of the object, it's compliment and a darker version of the color and we block in the shadows on the objects.

We use two brushes - a light brush and a dark one. After we have the shadows in, we block in the lights by mixing the color, adding white and if it is too bright using a tiny bit of the compliment to it.

Then we come back with our dark brush and do the darkest darks. Then transitions, then highlights.

;)