This week I resumed working on the still life painting I started back in week 3. Rotten tomatoes notwithstanding, I am actually feeling pretty good about the direction this work is heading in.
Here’s where I ended up last time:
And here’s where I am currently, after about another hours worth of painting:
As you can see, added more layers to the background and now the colours look much more rich and vibrant. And I managed to figure out the shape for the top of the jug. I feel like I’m starting to get the hang of this again. Last time I was trying to use thick applications of paint to get deeper colours, which wasn’t really working because the acrylics I have are fairly transparent and you really have to work layer upon layer and build up to what you want. The next step from here is to finish the background and start adding more midtones to the jug and fruit. Hopefully I won’t need to spend too much time on the background. You may have noticed from photos in past blog posts that the still life is composed on top of a green and white plaid dish towel. After much consideration, I’ve decided to keep it simple for this painting and probably just leave the dishcloth white. I did try to put the green lines in but it was a rather halfhearted attempt and didn’t turn out well, so I ended up wiping it all off, which left behind a pretty cool textured effect, actually. It just ended up being a bit too much green between the apple and the lines- so while this might be a bit of a cop out I think it will ultimately improve the final product. Also, I have bigger fish to fry and not many weeks left to fry them, so I’m loathe to spend hours painting green lines on a dishcloth.
My goal is to be finished with this piece within the next two weeks. Will I meet this goal??! Stay tuned to find out!