Sunday, November 2, 2008

Fruit with vessels, a la prima painting


Ok, here's the painting I completed last Monday during my a la prima still life class. As I indicated in my last post, I completed the entire painting. Of course, it's not all as developed as it should be. But, I was happy that I covered the whole canvas. I kinda pulled it together during the eleventh hour, I guess you could say.

For those of you new to my blog, I'm taking an a la prima painting class. Each painting for the class must be completed within the three hour class period. It's been a challenging process; learning to paint in one sitting. There are many pieces that need to be brought together to make it happen at all, let alone successfully. LOL!

There are obvious components that I'm not happy with. The chair is slightly off on the top left of the chair back. I can't believe I missed that. There are some tonal variations with the chair as well that could make it appear more solidified. The spatial relationships between the area directly behind the table and those peripheral elements (i.e., chair, end of black platform the table and chair are on). I am also wanting to work on rendering drapery to appear more solid.

Oh, and by the way, my 2-year old is responsible for the finger prints and occasional smudges. I shouldn't have had it where it was, but she picked it up and moved it. In the process, she put dark marks on the white canvas drape and smudged a couple of other areas. No biggie though.

I'd like to try, at some point, toning the background so it melts into the gray value I have been using for this class. Then with that established I can pull out the more saturated values of the focal point.

Let me know what you think!

What materials do you use?

I was originally trained with traditional oils. I moved on to alkyd oils because I liked the fact that they dried more quickly but still pro...