"Seckel Pears"

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"Seckel Pears"

6 x 6 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

I saw these pears this morning at the grocery store and what really caught my attention is that they look like mini pears, they are literally half the size of regular pears.  Of course anything that seems out of the norm catches my attention and I have to paint it.  What also grabbed my attention with these guys are their textures, I wanted to examine them further with the paints.  I'm in this stage now that I want to push my handling in textures, I want to make the paint seem as its alive rather than over blended and dull.  That's the wondrous part of painting is that you can never be content, as for me I always try to push myself to get better and that's the beauty of these alla prima's.

Setup.

I started with the usual dry brush approach just using a bit of raw umber on the brush.  Then I stated the background and wooden base after the drawing is complete, I just concentrated on the fall of light and big form modeling with the general colors.  The colors I used in the background were ultramarine blue, naples yellow and titanium white.  The colors for the base were raw umber, burnt sienna, ivory black, ultramarine blue, and titanium white.

After the big form modeling is complete I started with the smaller form modeling, in this stage I like to break it up in two stages first starting with the darker values.  Then to finish the smaller form modeling stage I state the lighter values and their highlights.  

I start on the first pear after the wooden base is complete, again just stating the big form modeling stage with their general colors.  All I'm worried about in this stage is just turning the form with the light and general colors, not interested in details remember they are no use until the bigger form is working right.  With these pears since their overall values are darker handling the darker value stage is done when dealing with big form modeling, I only have to worry about the lighter values and highlights for the smaller form modeling.  The colors I used for the pears were viridian, ultramarine blue, naples yellow, raw umber, ivory black, cad.yellow light, burnt sienna and titanium white.

I repeat the same process with the second pear and take it to a finish.  

Another pic of the setup this time with the finished painting.  As you can see with my palette I don't use globs of paint in the beginning, I like to gradually build up to the thickness I'm going for.  I hope you enjoyed this one I know I certainly did, thanks for stopping by and viewing.