In our last class we started working on the detail to finish our painting. Be sure to have any corrections you see that bother you done before you start detailing your painting, it will save you time and frustration in the long run and, hopefully, any corrections you do see will only be minor ones.
I wanted to do a demo on just one apple so you could see the process. The apples in the painting are small and hard to see unless you are the one painting them. I used the previous demo for the under painting of the green apple and just to be clear, the techniques I use are the same regardless of the color of the apple, I just use different colors.
I started with cad yellow and added a touch of sap green and a little gesso to make a light yellow/green. I use a series of short curved strokes to add this color to the apple, starting in the brightest area, so have your reference photo where you can see it. In the red apples use the napthol red or cad red with orange and/or yellow to make a light color with only a small touch of gesso only to give the color more body. If you use too much gesso it will turn the color pink and that's not what you want.
Be sure to make your strokes follow the curves of the apple and you can brush mix (adding color to your painting and mixing on the canvas) doing wet into wet as the curves of the apple get darker by adding more sap green then sap green and blue as you go into the shadows. Or, you can take part of the light color you mixed and on one side mix a medium green with the sap green and a little blue and in another part of that light color have a darker version with more blue and a little green. You should end up with 3 values (light to dark) of apple green, you can do this will the red as well. You have
You can also clean up edges and define shapes better at this point as well.
The basket also needs to have some highlights, shadows and detail added but you really need to pay close attention to the weave of the basket. I saw many of you just doing your own thing and, while I don't want to discourage originality, I know you want it to look like a basket. Look at the area you are going to paint in the photo. If you are doing the handle, note how it twists and spirals around and how the spirals change as they go from one side to the other. Or if you are ding the basket, look how one reed twist as it goes over and under others. These can be simple marks you can make with the end of the flat sable or if you feel more comfortable using a round sable, use that, just be aware of the shape of both the light and the shadows as you make them.
The highlight on the basked was white (gesso) a tiny touch of orange and a tiny touch of sienna. You just want to tint the white. In the mid tone colors of the basket I added more orange and sienna and in the shadows I added more blue to this same color. Again, I can have several values of a color on my pallet so I can go back and forth between them though I usually start in the lightest area so my color stays clean.
This is where I left off in class. I am hoping that I can finish up this project at our next meeting as we only have 2 more classes to the semester. While this project looked simple - apples in a basket on a table - I think you have learned the lesson of looks can be deceiving but if you take it one step at a time you can work your way through even the most challenging project.
Try to have your paintings to this point by next class, keep painting and I will will see you in class.
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