"Two Hues of Green"

Oil on linen on panel, 6 x 6 inches

Daily Paintworks selected me to be this week's Spotlight Giveaway artist! Check out the interview where they asked some compelling questions. While you're there, you can enter to win the above painting, too!

"Around the Corner"

Oil on canvas panel, 11 x 14 inches, $325

This painting started as a demo for my oil painting class. The red cloth is a curtain I found at a local thrift store. It's a really thick material and I love the way it drapes down and then wraps around the corner of the table. The folds are just so interesting to me - and were fun to paint.

"The Cloth Divide"

Oil on canvas panel, 11 x 14 inches, $325

 

I began this painting as a demo for my students and used a limited palette of Yellow Ochre, Terra Rosa, Ivory Black and Titanium White. The canvas was toned with Raw Umber.

These earthy versions of the primary colors are nearly the same as those used by Swedish painter Anders Leonard Zorn (1860-1920). But, instead of Terra Rosa, the Zorn palette uses Vermillion (or modern-day Cadmium Red Light). Other earthy reds like Venetian Red, English Red Light or Light Red Oxide work well, too.

Using the Zorn palette has its benefits. The muted color scheme creates color harmony and unity with no effort at all. It's also a good teaching tool, because beginning students can learn how to manipulate oil paint without the concern for exact color-matching. The subdued tones also help students recognize complimentary colors and strengthen their understanding of the color wheel.

Ivory Black is cool and stands in for blue. So in this painting, for example, the small pitcher on the left was blue, so I used Ivory Black to paint it. Mixing Ivory Black with Yellow Ochre results in an nice, earthy, sort of olive green. But, as a final step for this painting, I decided to brighten up the yellow-green apples with a thin glaze of Viridian mixed with Cadmium Yellow. Below is a shot of the painting before the glaze was added.

"Green Apples and Lace"

Oil on canvas, 12 x 16 inches, $400

Back in the studio for some still life painting. Actually, I painted this one in the classroom alongside my oil painting students. The biggest challenge for everyone was achieving the look and feel of lace without going overboard on every last detail. The best solution I could come up with was to paint in big shapes first and then selectively add a few smaller darks and highlights where they were needed. The time-tested method of "squinting" helped me see those big shapes and also helped me decide which details to include - and which to leave out.

"Two Hues of Green" SOLD

Oil on linen on panel, 6 x 6 inches

This is really a study in painting folds in a draped cloth more than anything. But I enjoyed capturing reflections in the vase and apple, too.

"Safe and Snug" SOLD

Oil on canvas on panel, 8 x 6 inches

Here's another still life that was painted using a full color accurate block-in. It's a method I'm beginning to warm up to, so I'm going to stick with it for a while.

I enjoyed painting the cloth with thicker paint and visible brush strokes, which I feel contrasts well with the smoothness of the bottle and other objects. The reflections of red and yellow in those objects were a delight to paint, too. They really were this bright, for the most part - something I probably wouldn't have seen if working from a photo.

Someone suggested, "Huddled Glasses," for a title. But, the colors are really warm and the apple seems protected by the others, so I opted for "Safe and Snug."

"Stacked and Arranged"

Oil on linen on panel, 6 x 6 inches, $150

Instead of beginning this still life painting with my usual preliminary line drawing, I approached it the same way I did my plein air paintings of this past summer - using a full color accurate block-in. For a description of this type of block-in, see Issue 10 of the ArtistChronicle eNewsletter. I just finished a portrait sketch in oils using the same approach. I'll share that with you in an upcoming post.

"Big Apple or Small Egg"

 Oil on linen on panel, 6 x 6 inches, $150

I'm back in the studio for some still life painting. When painting outdoors, time restraints demand a looser, more painterly style. It's a style that I'm beginning to warm up to, and so I've applied it here, too. But, I began this painting with a preliminary line drawing - which is something I don't do when painting outdoors. For my next still life I plan to do away with that step and approach it exactly as I do a "plein air" painting.

"Smiling Apple"

 Oil on linen on panel, 6 x 6 inches, $125

I finished a preliminary sketch, transferred it to the canvas and took a short break. Imagine my surprise when I returned to begin painting and saw this split in the apple! The lesson here was that apples don't like extreme temperature changes. From a cold fridge to a hot spotlight was not so good for our apple friend, here. At first I was simply going to ignore the split, but as I was painting, I realized that it added a lot of interest to an otherwise ordinary apple. And now, as I look at the finished painting, the apple's smile is unmistakable.