"Leaning Basil"

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"Leaning Basil"

12 x 9 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

This basil I've painted is in recovery mode, my girlfriend got it from her sister and has restored it back to good health.  It sits right in our kitchen next to the window and gets the best lighting in the whole house, I know its in heaven with all the natural light it gets.  Basils are tough to paint due to their leaves they can be grouped up in one area and have a somewhat pattern to their shape, this painting was not easy in no ways from beginning to end.  The colors is another factor they seem simple because they're just green, but they absorb colors that surround them so you get a lot of blues and yellows in the leaves.  I haven't painted basil in a while and glad I did so I hope to revisit these guys more in the future.

One of the benefits of painting all day is not going outside, sometimes thats a benefit at other times when its beautiful outside its not.  Today I must say it wasn't bearable to go outside it got to be 102 degrees fahrenheit, oh did I mention I'm in Minneapolis, Minnesota!  They say on Thursday and Friday the highs are barely even getting into the 70's, I have to say living in this state has shown me the extremes in weather.  Beautiful place to live you just have to be ready when mother nature decides to throw you a curve ball.

I started with the usual dry brush approach using no mediums and a bit of raw umber, after the drawing is complete I state the general colors and the fall of light.  I keep the paints fairly thin at this stage not going to thick.

Then I state the darker values and a bit of middle tones, I work on all the basil leaves at once when completing each stage.  Once the darker values are stated I start to work on the lighter values and highlights and work back and forth between each stage to bring it to a close finish.

Once the basil leaves are taken to a close completion I start on the vase by stating the middle to darker values.  Then I state the lighter values and take it to a finish.

For the finishing I state the background and soften the edges around the basil.  As stated before this was another challenging one to paint in one session glad I did so, I learn from every painting that I do and apply what I learn to the next one.  Thanks for stopping by and viewing hope you enjoyed this one!