I recently enrolled in an oil painting class through the Lander Art Center. We have had two classes so far, and spend most of the time painting and experimenting. I have been painting a pretty easy still-life of a lemon and two strawberries. We started by sketching out color blocks onto the canvas. This step is not meant to draw with detail, Virginia told us that is what we’ll be doing with the paint. The sketch step is for blocking out portions of color so that we could remove all the white from the canvas, a step called under-painting. So I drew a circle where my lemon was, drew some triangles where my strawberries were, and some smaller triangles for the greens of the strawberries. Once I was done sketching, I laid out my palette. It is important to lay out your palette in a structured way, some say to do it the same every time so that eventually you can grab some color without looking away from your painting. We laid out white and then a gradient of colors on the outer edges of our palette, so that we could mix colors inside the palette.
With our palette of colors, a jar of turpentine, a range of brushes, and a paper towel, we were ready to paint. First, I painted the main yellow of the lemon. I would mix my yellow with white and a little mustard color, then hold my brush up to the lemon to see if I was getting my color close. Once a good lemon-like yellow was made I filled in the entire circle, I repeated the steps with the strawberries and bacground until I had a great under-painting at the end of my first class.
During my second class, I started adding detail to the painting. The most interesting thing to my about painting is the new technique of creating an image in layers. It has really opened my eyes to understanding painting, and thinking in a brand new way. I love it! I started playing around with the shadows on the lemon, I even added a few of the lemons blemishes to the painting which really adds to the realism of the painting, something I didn’t think would be so easy to do. The scariest step so far was trying to figure out the bumps on the strawberry. There are lighter bumps and darker bumps. I started by making some yellowish dots and then going back over the dots with a darker red. Once I stepped back from the painting I was amazed that my strawberry was coming to life!
I brought my painting and some supplies home and will be working on it during the week. I will update you with my progress as I go. Please give me any techniques, ideas, critiques you have. I would love the feedback. Just remember this is my first ever painting.
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that’s awesome william! very cool that you’re picking up a new talent.
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