Making the Painting Pop Off the Canvas:
In this lesson we will be working over the basic lay-in that we established in the second part. Using the same colour mixtures we will start to make the painting more 3D.
- You will need to spread a very thin layer of your medium all over the painting to resaturate and darken all the colours (this is important whenever you start working on a dry oil painting).
- Then begin by working on the background around the fruit, making any adjustments to the value if necessary (I darkened mine) and make the contour around the fruit more detailed.
- Once you’ve finished the background, move onto the shadow of the fruit.
- You can use the same colour mixtures as the previous session so it should be easier to get the colours right.
- It is best to use a reasonable amount of medium in the darker tones so that they stay quite thin.
- As well as adding detail inside the shadow, you should also add detail to the edge of the shadow – which will begin to suggest the form and texture of the fruit in light.
- Finally make any necessary changes to the lighter parts of the fruit (you will probably need to paint some slightly brighter, more saturated colours than last week.
- Once the light tones are added, use mid tones to blend the shadows into the lights more softly.
- This final stage will make the painting pop off the canvas in a 3D way.
Course Materials:
- Small Canvas (stretched or board)
- Easel
- Palette
- Palette Cups
- Oil Paints
- Titanium White
- Cadmium Yellow (or equivalent bright yellow)
- Burnt Umber
- Raw Umber
- Prussian Blue
- Ivory Black
- Various brushes (ideally a range of smaller and larger brushes, but whatever you have lying around will be fine)
- Odourless mineral spirits
- Linseed oil
- Tape
- Paper towel or rag for cleaning up
