"Golden Raspberries"

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"Golden Raspberries"

8 x 10 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

I've painted these guys once before and titled the painting yellow raspberries, I had someone reply to my blog saying these where also called golden raspberries.  I looked it up and they're right, either way they're beautiful in color and especially harder to paint.  Painting raspberries is not an easy task when you throw yellow into the mix it makes even more of a challenge.  It's good to go straight ahead and face these challenges as they teach us something.  With this painting I wanted to concentrate on the composition and introduce another object, it's a little tin cup that i've been wanting to use for a while.  Glad I was able to finally incorporate it into a painting, you would think it'll be easy to do so but trust me it's not.  I also wanted to take the textures further with this painting, taking more time in each section and honing down how light describes each surface.  To me thats the key, to paint how light effects an object and its textures.

I started with the usual approach of a dry brush technique for the drawing stage, I used just a bit of raw umber on the brush.  When the drawing is completed I moved onto the tin cup and very thinly started to state the middle to darker values.  I leave my lights untouched I like to creep up to them and build the values up.  When I say I keep the paints thin in the beginning I mean I keep them VERY thin, it's practically a dry brush approach at this stage.  This allows me to build up my layers to their correct values and keep the edges soft and smooth.  Think of it how you would render with a pencil, you want to start with a light pressure to the pencil to get the lightest tones and build up to your dark's, it's the same approach I implore with these paintings.  If I need more paint or an area needs to be opaque then I apply more paint, its all at moderation.  

The colors I'm using for the tin cup are ivory black, titanium white, and cad. yellow.  I then apply the highlights to the tin cup with a bit of titanium white and cad. yellow.  After the tin cup is completed I move onto the golden raspberries, I apply the local colors to all of them first.  I want to get a general feel how they will look in the local color stage, after this stage I start taking it section by section.  The colors I'm using for the golden raspberries are cad. yellow, raw umber, cad. orange, and titanium white.

I then start adding the cast shadows to indicate more values, this allows me to push the lights further.  For the cast shadows I use ivory black, burnt umber and ultramarine blue.  I then take the golden raspberries in the tin cup and the two next to it to a finish.  It's difficult as stated before to render yellow raspberries, I don't know what it is but for me I find it a huge challenge to paint these guys.  A great learning experience as well.

Then I take the last two of the golden raspberries and complete them, I'm going back and forth from the middle to lighter values and dabbing the details.  Another thing with my technique that I have been doing lately is that when I start on an area I like to go back and forth with the brush and not pick up the brush.  It's not a dabbing technique its just laying down the brush and moving it back and forth with a very light touch.  This covers the area with a nice lighter value, if you want to go more opaque then press a little harder with the brush.  When I need to get details or specific transitions I then start to dab the brush meaning I pick up my brush with each stroke, this allows me to get finer details and better control.  You can see it here with the second picture, I did this back and forth thin paint application with the wooden base.  The tricky part about going back and forth you can apply too much pressure and lift the paint off the canvas.  It's very tricky you just have to be aware of the pressure you apply to the brush, remember its the same approach as rendering with a pencil.

I added the bottom part of the base and its details, the colors I used for the base are ivory black, cerulean blue, raw umber, cad. orange, and titanium white.  After the wooden base is completed I moved onto the background, I used naples yellow as the dominant color and mixed a little of cerulean blue, burnt sienna, and titanium white.  After the background is complete I stand back and look at the whole picture, I see if there is anything that needs be pushed or softened.  I usually walk away from it when I think its done, then after 20 minutes I come back with a fresh eye and see if it's really done.  Thanks for stopping by and viewing, hope you enjoyed!