"Nectarine & Pear"

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"Nectarine & Pear"

8 x 10 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

Hi everyone this painting is of the two main subjects of my last couple paintings.  I really love the way the reds and yellows mesh within these two, shows a relationship between them.  Its always a challenge painting with these two colors in any circumstances due to their strong chroma's, it's a great learning experience seeing how one can control the value and chroma.  When finished with this painting, I indulged in these two fruits and they where beyond delicious.  Makes me wanna keep painting more of these guys, as for now I think its time to move onto a different subject.

I started with the traditional dry brush approach using no mediums and just a bit of raw umber for the drawing stage.  After the drawing stage is completed I start on the nectarine, I scumble the beginning layers of the middle value before I get into the darker values.  The palette I'm using is cad. red light, raw umber and ivory black.  This scumbling effect is almost as if drawing with a pencil, you want to start light and press harder if you want a darker value or more opaque.

Then I start stating more of the reflected lights when adding the darker values, I'm using cad. orange and cad. yellow light in addition to the palette already described.  When the darker values are finished I move onto the middle to lighter values.  I like to creep up to my lights, this allows me to still treat the painting as a drawing.  

After the nectarine is completed I start on the pear, stating the middle to darker values.  With the pear I wanted to work more on big form modeling the whole shape.  I still added the local colors in a scumbling manner, keeping it thin so the additional layers of paint will not get to thick and uncontrollable.  I'm using the same palette as I did with the nectarines.  

When the bigger form is turning and is conveying the information I'm looking for, then and only I start to add the smaller forms or the details.  Still keeping the paints thin so it mixes well with the layer thats already on the canvas, I go a little thicker only to get a higher chroma color or to state a gestural stroke.  I do like going really thick in my highlights.  

I then start to add the information to the wooden base, starting with the darker values by using ivory black, and raw umber, cad. orange and burnt sienna.  Then I add the middle to lighter values by just adding titanium white.  When stating this information I start seeing more of the darks effecting the overall value of the pear and nectarine.  I do go back in the end and shift a couple values here and their, but these are minor changes that occur in the end.

This is the final pic, I stated the background by using cerulean, burnt sienna and titanium white.  I was very careful when going around the edges.  I made sure to soften some edges and keep other edges nice and crisp.  Its always important to understand how edges effect you'r painting, if you truly can understand edges and its complexities than your ahead of the game.  This was a fun one to do and hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, thanks for stopping by!