Tuesday, September 21, 2010

"Crab Apples 2"

Sold
"Crab Apples 2"
8 x 10 in
Oil on Canvas Panel
I wanted to thank everyone who has signed up for my first online course, I'm overwhelmed on the amount of people that have signed up! The class is still open for registration if anybody is interested, just leave a comment with your information or email me directly.   I'll be offering courses on how to paint these alla prima studies in one session.  We will go step by step in each lesson and make sure you understand my process on each level.  I will offer a critique through out the whole process till the end result.  The first lesson entails of the whole process of the painting, my video demo that I will send to each student explaining my process in thorough, critiques through out the painting, and one on one help at any time to help the student via email.  I'm really excited to offer this course to everyone and develop it further, thanks again!
I started with my usual approach of no mediums just raw umber on the brush for the drawing stage.  I covered the background first using titanium white, cerulean blue, naples yellow, and cad. red.
I started on the first apples after the background was finished using ivory black, cad. red,  and cad. red deep.   I started with the darker values first to have the full range of darks and lights first, I use the white of the canvas to judge my lightest value.  Then I state the middle values by using cad. red, cad. red light, cad. orange, yellow ochre pale.  I've also filled in the stem area.  At this stage when I get to the lighter values I'm constantly aware of the form turning and how much paint I'm applying to get the certain look I want.
I state the lighter values by just adding titanium white to the middle value mixture and build my paints to the desired thickness.  After finishing the first apple I start on the second apple with the same process and  palette as I did with the previous.  
In these steps you can see that I'm careful in each stage, as far as paint application and value shifts.  One has to be aware of how much paint is applied in order to control the look of the oils and control within the layers.
I started on the third apple with the same process and palette as I did with the first apple.
Then I started on the base just using ivory black, cad. red light, and cad. orange.
This is the finished picture I added the lighter values of the base by using burnt sienna, cerulean blue, and titanium white.  The approach in painting these apples was neat to do, the skin texture kind of reminded me of painting human flesh.  The amount of colors are in the human skin kind of resembled the  flesh of the apple.  Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed!

4 comments:

Carrie Waller Watercolors said...

Great piece! I laughed when I first saw it, it looks like the apple is about to push the other one over the edge. The title "Don't do it" came to mind. Reminded me of my little boys for some reason always pushing it a little too far:) Fantastic job! Congrats on the successful response to your on-line class, makes me wish I painted in oils.

Diane Hoeptner said...

Nice to see your process here! Thanks for sharing.

Virginia Floyd said...

Very beautiful and informative. I love that you explain your color choices. It makes me want to try painting apples.

SEILER said...

Beautiful work Jonathan!