Monday, July 26, 2010

"Onion"

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"Onion"
8 x 10 in
Oil on Canvas Panel
I'm back!  After a great workshop with Michael Klein I am back to the swing of things again, this painting was more of me warming up with my daily paintings again.  I am definitely going to say it's not the best of my abilities but it was a warm up painting to get back to the daily paintings, I started to get the  hang of it once I started on the leaves and the light green area of the onion.  When I was at the workshop I purposely did not paint the way I'm used too I wanted to apply the whole process the way Michael would paint, I learned a lot and still trying to decipher everything and apply it to my paintings.  
I started with the dry brush approach using raw umber and no mediums, after the drawing was established I started in the onion.  I started with the darks using ultramarine blue, and alizarine crimson I am also starting to state some of the background too using yellow ochre pale, ivory black, and titanium white.
Then I added the middle and lighter values in the onion using the same mixture as stated above except I am using titanium white, and cobalt blue.  Then I moved towards the leaves using ultramarine blue, viridian, and cadmium yellow pale hue, I started with the darkest values and moved towards the lights.
Then I started on the middle section of the leaves where the values are more subtle, then I started on the darkest values of the longer leaves and moved towards the lighter values using the same mixture as stated above.
I also stated the rest of the background when filling in the leaves I do this to keep harmony with the edges and form.  After the leaves are done I start on wooden base and again start from darker values to the lighter values using ivory black, burnt sienna, and titanium white.
For the finishing touches in the strings coming out in the bottom of the onion I used titanium white, yellow ochre pale, and ivory black.  As I stated before this painting was more of a warm up for me to return to my regular daily paintings and try to mesh what I learned from the workshop with my own style, I hope you enjoyed this one and appreciate you stopping by!

3 comments:

Gary Keimig said...

nicely painted Jonathan.

Anonymous said...

Awesome! Well I guess I know now where I did mistakes on my painting. I will try to follow this example for my next paintings!

Pamela Hunt Lee said...

Have been setting up piles of onions and garlic in preparation of a painting or two. Must be in the air! Such fun to watch your paintings develop.