I took a couple pictures as I worked through this painting over the course of a few sessions. I started with a canvas toned with some Burt Umber to give it a warm base. Next I sketched out the shape with paint, again some Burnt Umber. Then I got to business laying down darks first an then blocking in major values.

I was pretty happy with the results of my first session. The painting was feeling somewhat accurate and loose, I’m really trying to loosen up my painting style. However I felt my colours were too cool so I swapped out the lemon yellow from my palate and used Cadmium Yellow instead. I ended up painting at least one whole new layer over the first session.  The paint went on a lot smoother this time which was nice.

I  paid a lot of attention to warm and cool values during my second session. I had a small window to the left that was letting some nice cool blue light that hit in the shadows. I also had a warm brown surface that the valve was sitting on so I wanted that warmer value to be reflected in the relevant shadows.

Here is the end product.

I learned a lot on this painting exercise, it’s certainly not perfect but I’m happy to let that go and move onto a new painting, which I started today. Carrots, yeah I know, not exciting but I want to paint something orange. 

So I’ve been painting. Initially I was a bit apprehensive to get started, which is natural, but once I did, wow, I haven’t looked back. As a perk, I’ve rediscovered music and fallen behind on some TV shows. All good.

Rather than dive in head first and tackle big complex paintings I wanted to work on some basics to get myself perpared for the ’serious’ projects.

1. Observation. This is one of the first things I like to do when getting back into art projects (usually have breaks of many years between attempts). To get this muscle back in shape I’ve opted to do a bunch of still life’s until I feel comfortable with the medium and process. In the past I’ve used life drawing class as a great way to get back  in shape.

2. Oils as a medium. It’s been years since I had an intro to oil painting class so I feel like I’m totally  back to basics. I’m certainly learning a lot with each painting.

3. Process. I like process, I like to know what’s behind a piece of work, the different steps taken, so I’ve been reading books and watching videos to get exposed to as many different and not so different approaches to painting with oils.

To help me along I’ve loaded myself up with a few good books that are not the typical how to paint variety but ones that get deeper into colour theory, mixtures, harmony and all that good stuff. The books I’ve got right now are Fill Your Oil Paintings with Light and Color, Helen Van Wyk’s Favorite Color Recipes and Mastering Color. All really good books so far, it’s going to take me a while to get through them. I’ve also been taking advantage of all the great demos on you tube, check out my youtube favorites for a good sampling to start with. I’ve also found a wonderful ustream show by Dave the Painting guy, Dave paints portraits and takes his audience thought he process from start to finish over as many sessions as it takes. I’m not painting portraits yet but I have been learning quite a bit through listening and observing Dave’s painting process and techniques.

So here are a few still life paintings I’ve done over the last month. Nothing groundbreaking here but everyone has to start somewhere.

Oil painting of lemons, December 2008

Oil painting of radishes, December 2008

Oil painting of teacup, December 2008

Oil painting of apples, January 2009

Oil painting of a baseball, January 2009