"Fall Leaves"

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"Fall Leaves"

10 x 8 in 

Oil on Canvas Panel

I got up this morning not knowing what I wanted to paint, I usually hang around the kitchen and see what inspires me.  My girlfriend and I just finish remodeling our kitchen which just consisted of putting in shelves, dish soap holder and a magnetic strip for the knives.  We love the way the kitchen looks and it has so much more space now for our little apartment.  While we were getting our kitchen ware from ikea we also picked up this adorable bottle, which inspired me this morning when first seeing it.  I was only going to paint the bottle but my girlfriend gave me a great idea to incorporate some of the leaves from outside.  Fall in Minnesota is so beautiful, the leaves on tree's change to these beautiful intense colors.  With her great idea that's what I did and really like the combination of the two.  Really different than what I usually do other than the wooden base but that's what attracted me to paint these objects, I really wanted to paint something different and push myself at the same time.  The bottle has so much subtle values and of course it's see through, clear glass is not something I usually paint and wanted to see how I can do it.  Alway's fun to see how far you can push yourself as a painter and stay true to what you'r painting.

I also wanted to let you guys know that starting this Saturday my paintings will be at the Dunn Bro's coffee shop, they're located on Humboldt Ave & Lake St. in Uptown, Minneapolis.  They'll be up for a whole month!

Picture of my setup after the drawing stage.  Today was an ideal day to paint with natural light it was cloudy which gives a nice soft light to the painting.  

I started with the usual raw umber on the brush for the drawing stage.  After the drawing is complete I stated the background and also painted the background color in the bottle since its see through.  I also painted the wooden base at the same time, the colors I used were yellow ochre, cobalt blue, titanium white, and raw umber.

Then I stated the darker values with their specific forms on the wooden base, the colors I used for this stage were ivory black and cad. orange.  I then added the lighter values with their specific forms, after doing that I filled in the general colors for the leaves.  The colors I used for the lighter values were titanium white, naples yellow, burnt sienna, and cobalt blue.  The colors I used for the general lay in of the leaves were cad. yellow light, naphthol red, raw umber, viridian, cobalt blue, and yellow ochre.

Then I stated the darker values with their specific forms for the first set of leaves on the left.  Then I added the lighter values with their specific forms by adding titanium white to the mixture.  I also start on the other set of leaves by stating their darker values and specific forms.

Then I take the leaves to a finish by adding the lighter values and their specific forms.  Once the leaves are completed I move onto the bottle by adding the middle to darker values with their specific forms.  I have to really concentrate and make sure to turn the form with the limited colors thats given.  The challenging thing about painting this bottle is it's edges, there's a lot of lost and found edges.  The colors I used for this stage were ivory black and titanium white.

For the finishing touches I add the lighter values and their specific forms, the colors I used for this stage is titanium white and cobalt blue.  I made sure to go thicker in the lights to really get that shine for the reflection.  I had fun with this one especially doing something completely different in subject matter, I learned a lot to say the least.  Hope you enjoyed this one, thanks for stopping by and viewing!