Options for Painting Lights and Darks

In my oil painting class for beginners, we've started to delve into color after working in black and white for a while. This week I did a painting demo for them showing two different ways to lighten and darken an object, in this case an apple, so they could compare the two methods side-by-side.

Apple 1

The first method I showed them was using white to lighten and black to darken the paint. I used titanium white, but I did mix my own black rather then using a tube black. I think the difference between the dark areas of the two paintings would have been more striking if I'd used black from a tube (full disclosure here: I forgot to bring a tube of black). It's been a long time since I used white as my predominant lightener and it felt awkward. I had to really concentrate and fight my now-automatic color choices!

Apple 2

In the second painting I used yellow and orange to lighten the apple and only added white when absolutely necessary. For the dark areas, I used purple and blue. I had planned to use a more white-looking tabletop color, but I accidentally put a streak of that rusty peach color down and we all loved it, so I kept going with it.

While comparing the two paintings side-by-side, the students commented on how much more vibrant Apple 2 was, and they noticed that in Apple 1 the white mixed with alizarin crimson created a pink tone, rather than a sense of light striking the apple. As they were leaving class pondering all these color choices, one student half-jokingly said, "Can't we just go back to black and white? It's so much easier!"

Pear #26 - 29: Lots More Experimenting

"A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all."
                                                                                            ~ Rita May Brown

Pear #26

As I type, there's a severe thunderstorm giving a final lashing to our area before it moves on. I fully expected the power to go out tonight, leaving me to paint Pear #30 by candlelight. Thankfully that didn't happen and my last painting for the month is finished and waiting for daylight so I can photograph it and post my final 30 Pears in 30 Days on Tuesday. It's no beauty, but it's DONE.

I apologize for the less-than-perfect photos of Pear 26 - 29. It's been gloomy out for a few days now, so I've been completely dependent on indoor lighting for photos. Even with color-corrected bulbs to augment the regular room lighting, my camera has not been happy.

Pear #27

This one, however, is not the camera's fault. I don't even know what to say. What happened???

Pear #28

Experimenting with temperature shifts across the folds of the cloth. This is one of those pieces that I absolutely love parts of and can't stand other parts.

Pear #29

I had a lot of fun with this one. I added naphthol red to my palette, which mixed with cadmium yellow light to make the delicious orange in the foreground. If you look carefully, I've got the full spectrum (good ol' Roy G Biv) represented here.

Happy Halloween everyone! 

Pear #21 - 25: More Exercises and a Whole Different Palette

Pear #25
6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas board

I have to admit to feeling a little pressure right now. The end of October is fast approaching and I lost a few days for painting this month when Life happened, so I'm running slightly behind. Although I profess to believe in the importance of sharing both good and bad efforts to show that artists don't create perfect paintings every time, I am sweating the quality of some of these pieces. That's why Pear 21 through 24 are not displayed at the top of this post...

However, I suspect that Pear 21 through 24 directly led to Pear 25, and not just numerically. I tried another exercise from Sarah Sedwick; this one on brushstroke economy. I painted my pear model 4 times, for 10 minutes each time. However, I was only allowed 25 brushstrokes in the first painting, then 20, 15, and finally just 10 brushstrokes in the last painting. (A brushstroke is from the time you touch the canvas with the brush to the time you take the brush off, so you can swirl the paint around a lot, as long as you don't lift the brush off the canvas.) Finishing the background was not a requirement. The point is to really think and observe, and consider each brushstroke very carefully. What do you really need to create the impression of your subject?

Pear # 21 - 24
Limited brushstroke exercise

Oh dear, I didn't do very well with this one. I often used up my brushstrokes long before the timer went off, which meant I was rushing and not concentrating on my subject. I came out of the exercise not only with some very ugly pears, but also knowing I hadn't gotten the point of it. I was feeling very frustrated with myself. I knew I needed to keep going and paint another painting, but my brain was refusing to cooperate. I looked down at my palette and felt an overwhelming sense of frustration and boredom, and I was very reluctant to pick up my paintbrushes.

As I was hesitating, I had a mini-temper tantrum inside my head. I berated myself for ever committing to this Pear Project, telling myself I was going to fail and embarrass myself, and that I was never going to be able to paint another decent painting ever again. Luckily another, louder part of me stepped in and decided that if I was going to fail, then I should just have some f*****g fun. I was sick of the palette I'd been using all month, sick of trying to get the values and shapes right: I just wanted to paint. So I cleared off my palette and grabbed the colors that appealed to me at that moment: yellow ochre, Indian red, Venetian red, burnt umber and raw umber (I couldn't find my siennas, otherwise I would've included them, too.). I made a very sketchy drawing of the pears on the canvas and then just started adding paint all around them. It was all very spontaneous, and when I was done it surprised the heck out of me that I discovered I actually liked the piece.

This was exactly why I took on this project in the first place - to see what would happen when I pushed myself, when I got bored, to find out if there was some way to tap into the more expressive side of my creativity. I just hope that I don't have to go through such angst every time I want to paint like that!

Pear #19 & 20 - Color Scheme Shifts

Pear #19 - Experimenting with reflections

I seem to be unconsciously shifting towards more earth tones and darker colors. Perhaps it's all the brown leaves drifting down past my window, or perhaps it's that Halloween is in the air...

Pear #20 - using up what was on my palette

Pear #10 - More Color Experimenting

"Colouring does not depend on where the colours are put, but on where
the lights and darks are put..."
                                                                                        ~ William Blake

Pears in yellow and purple
6 x 6 inches - oil on canvas board

As I said at the beginning of this month-long project, my intention for painting 30 pear paintings was to allow me to explore some key artistic concepts without always having to come up with new subject matter. For this painting, I wanted to work on breaking my dependency on the color white. When we lighten colors simply by adding white, we dull the color and often the painting comes out looking chalky and not as vibrant as we might like. For this painting, I used only yellow and purple; purple replaced black and yellow replaced white on my palette. I found it interesting that my color mixes ended up being much more green than I had expected; my purple mix must have leaned more towards blue.

My palette with my usual colors at the top, and
the yellow and purple palette in a 8 step value scale below.

Artist Sarah Sedwick has a YouTube demo that she filmed for her online mentorship students, showing her working with a purple/yellow complimentary chromatic scale. In her demo, she's working with a still life set-up that is entirely white. I have yet to find a white pear, so I tried the exercise with a white & green tea towel on a white tabletop with my yellow-green pears. My yellow/purple combination certainly didn't make the most attractive shades of color, but I enjoyed the exercise and, as a bonus, gained more practice rendering cloth.

Painting converted to grayscale.