"Evening Tea"

Click here to purchase this painting at my Etsy store

"Evening Tea"

14 x 18 in

Oil on Linen

This is my latest still life painting (not an alla prima painting), its of oranges surrounding this beautiful rustic tea kettle resting on a geisha blue cloth and a wooden stool peaking through.  To say I had fun painting this one would be a complete understatement, I wanted to control and manipulate a bit the lighting pattern in my painting.  One thing is to copy from life the other is enhancing what you'r painting and make it your own.  I had this gold frame for a while and glad I was finally able to create a painting worth of it.

I started with getting the setup just right and positioning my canvas to a close sight to size copy I can get to.

I did the drawing in raw umber, concentrated in simplifying the shapes as much as I can and positioning them just right.

Then did a whole underpainting in raw umber, and cremnitz white.  This allows me to get the tone I'm going for and play with the lights a bit.  I usually don't do this when starting a painting but wanted to try something different this time.  This is also good to do if you haven't prepared your canvas with a ground, it gives the linen some tooth.

I started to paint the blue cloth and oranges, as you can see I had to get other oranges because they started to go bad and change colors.  There are many tricks you have to improvise when painting from life especially with still life's pertaining to fruits and vegetables.  This is the last picture I took of the process and apologize for not taking more.  Basically I worked on each section to a finish and brought the whole painting to a finish by repeating this process.  The process I use for my alla prima's I applied to  this painting, I saw how easier it was to achieve difficult transitions in certain areas and have a unity throughout the finish of the painting.    

Just a reminder to everyone you can sign up for my new lesson on how to paint "Pink Roses".  Here's a trailer for it:

  

"Blue Tangerines 2"

Click here to purchase this painting at my Etsy store

"Blue Tangerines 2"

10 x 8 in

Oil on Canvas Panel

I wanted to do another painting of these tangerines and blue cloth, the last one I did really pushed me to my limits and I wanted another try at it.  I'm glad I did so because I really enjoyed the process.  It was hard for me to just paint this while seeing my girlfriend put up all the christmas ornaments and clean the apartment, I felt bad not helping but she knows how much I am addicted to painting and when I have the itch all I can do is just paint.  I really do appreciate her patience and letting me dive into my passion, she's truly one of a king, to say I'm the luckiest guy in the world is an understatement.  I still wanted to keep the play within the tangerines and have the blue cloth be a little separated.  Painting these two different textures have been a challenge to say the least but also has been an eye opener on how to handle my craft and adjust it to each painting.  I hope you guys have enjoyed this one thanks for stopping by and viewing.

"Blue Tangerines"

Sold

"Blue Tangerines"

10 x 8 in 

Oil on Canvas Panel

I wanted to challenge myself again with another try in painting this blue cloth, and challenging it was.  Blue is such a transparent color and to make it look finished in one session was very difficult.  I did like the concept of having these two elements together especially since their colors do clash.  I concentrated most of my time in the blue cloth and trying to get a good grasp of the technique.  

I started with the usual dry brush approach for the drawing stage, I have a bit of raw umber on the brush.  Once the drawing is complete I stated the background and blue cloth, the colors I used for the background were cobalt blue, naples yellow and titanium white.  For the general lay in of the blue cloth I used ultramarine blue, cobalt blue.

Then I stated the darker values and worked more with the big form modeling of the whole form, I used ivory black for the darker values.  Once the darker values were working I moved onto the lighter values by adding titanium white to cobalt blue.  

Once the cloth was finished I started on the tangerines working on both at the same time.  I first started with the general color lay in and then big form modeling, the colors I used were cad.orange, cad.yellow light, naphthol red, raw umber and ivory black.  After big form modeling I stated the darker values with their specific forms.

Then I stated the lighter values and highlights with their specific forms to bring the painting to a finish, the colors I used for this stage were mainly titanium white and cad.yellow light.  Now to go and eat these delicious tangerines!  Thanks for stopping by and viewing hope you enjoyed!