"Garlic"

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"Garlic"

8 x 16 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

Thanks everyone for responding to my interests of streaming online demos I'm happy with the response, I was also thinking of holding some classes through an online deal let me know if anyone is interested in taking a course!?  This is still in the infancy stage I have too familiarize myself with the whole online streaming deal but it does seem fascinating.  

I went to the farmers market and saw this garlic standing upright and looking so proper in a way, of course I had to buy it and paint it.  I never seen garlic in this stage with a sort of stem elongated I have just enjoyed the diced garlic meshed in with my pasta!  I started this painting with a dry brush approach using no mediums just raw umber to get a fairly accurate drawing.

I concentrate in one area only and then move on too the next, I like to start with the darkest values first in this case I'm using ivory black, titanium white, permanent rose, and cadmium orange.  You can see with these pics the progression I go from the beginning of the section towards the end, you can also see when I start getting into the middle and lighter values using titanium white, permanent rose, and cadmium yellow light.  I've also stated the cast shadow to using ivory black to make the edges disappear where they need to recede.  I must point out that its crucial to finish each stage the best to your ability the whole point of this technique is to devote all your concentration in each stage and move onto the next.

After taking the garlic to a finish I started on the stem again starting with the darkest values first using ivory black and moving towards the middle and lighter values using viridian, cadmium yellow light, cobalt blue, and titanium white.

Then I established the background in order to push the edges of the garlic where I needed them to be, I used cerulean blue, naples yellow, and titanium white.

After the background was done I started with the base and worked on the cast shadows using cerulean blue, burnt sienna, cadmium orange and ivory black.  Once they were taken to a finish I worked on the rest of the base and also making sure to handle the edges with a lot of sensitivity, I can not stress enough how important edges are if you vary your edges from soft to hard you will see such a difference right of the back.  Take time and carefully observe your edges and how you can manipulate them to your advantage.

This is the finished painting, the size was an obstacle in the beginning but I knew I wanted to have it in this format to properly compose this delicate food specimen.  Thank you for stopping by I hope you enjoyed this painting as much as I did!