"Squash"
10 x 8 in
Oil on Canvas Panel
Well I decided to paint a squash which is similar in shape and texture to a pumpkin, and I did not have fun painting my last pumpkin painting. I knew this was going to be a challenge for me in many ways, which is also exciting. The textures in the squash are somewhat subtle but in other areas are pretty apparent. As you'll see in my explanation of this painting I decided to paint this one in a different approach, one of the reasons is to be done to take advantage of natural light. I use natural lighting to take photos of my finished painting, and since it's not summer anymore the light has been getting dimmer quicker throughout the day. It's a good challenge to finish in a certain period of time, a lot of pressure though.
I started with the my traditional approach of using no mediums and just a bit of raw umber on the brush. After the drawing is established I added the background using cerulean blue, naples yellow, and titanium white.
After the background is filled in I started on the shadows of the squash using cad. orange, raw umber, and ivory black. At this point I'm dabbing where the darker areas are at and also where the middle darker values are at, i'm not worried about blending everything perfect now. The second pic shows this procedure taken further, I started to dab the middle and a little of the lighter values, its just to get a placement for all the values. It's not my usual approach but I wanted to try something different with this squash painting.
After keying in all the values I went back to the shadows and took it to a finish, then I went to the middle values and did the same taking that area to a finish.
I also stated the stem of the squash along with the lighter and middle values, the colors I used for the lighter values were naples yellow, cad. yellow light, titanium white, and cad. orange. For the highlights of the squash I went really thick with the paint to describe the textures better. When the squash was completed I moved onto the base using ivory black, cad. orange, and burnt sienna.
Then I added the middle values using burnt sienna, cerulean blue, and titanium white. After the overall key nots where places I went back and added the smaller details. Approaching this painting in a different way than I usually paint was fun to do, it pushed me in many directions and allowed me to experiment. That's the point of these alla prima paintings that I paint, to push and develop my technique as far as I can. Thank you for stopping by and viewing my painting, hope you enjoyed it!
2 comments:
Great job! You can really see the texture. I know what you mean about the light, I've been trying to set up a still life but this week overcast and rainy. Maybe this weekend. Lovely job:)
Good work Jonathan, I have to thank you in the name of my students, they have been doing some of your paintings, they find them very good to learn.Thanks.
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