The Bachelor

 The apples keep getting better. The video is terrible-I’m too busy painting! The series would have been four but I would like to keep going. Student grade acrylic works well as a ground if cut 1/4 into gesso. I picked up a quantity on sale not really knowing how I would use it. At first I thought them useless as they are shiny and transparent. The Bachelor was made with regular heavy body acrylics whereas triplex was Golden Open acrylic, which are both transparent and precious feeling. Small tubes, perhaps?

Triplex

 How do you like these apples? This one is done at home using two lamps. The plate colours are dark and intense. I like where this is going, and aim to make a set of four with dwelling related titles. The 6x6 format is great for my skill development.

Acrylic Apples: Quarters

 What a difference light makes. Today I’m working without lamps and a bay window at my back, with barely enough overcast daylight to get shadow, highlight and reflection. My regular acrylic palette has  burnt umber, phthalo blue, alizarin, cad red, Arylide yellow medium, pale lemon and Titanium white.

Compare these two-such a small adjustment stroke to the background made such a difference in spatial dimension.

The Buzzing Tree

 Walking the neighbourhoods near me is a regular thing now, with no gym membership. My daughter and I usually walk together and choose different destinations. For a change we went up to Beaconsfield, where there are curvy streets and cul-de-sacs. At one point we heard a strange and quite loud buzzing noise like machinery of some kind. Curious, we followed the sound to another street and a glorious old tree in full blossom. It was completely full of bees, furiously working on the nectar. So many bees, and so loud!

 I photographed the house across from the tree and later painted it. It has complimentary orange and pthalo in the sunlight with lots of planar shifts from one section to the next when viewed from behind. The lessons from my last entry about underpainting prompted a little experiment in colour and a more detailed underpaint. The bricks are under painted in light and dark blue while the sky is orange, with neutrals on the pavement and roofs. This is a cheap paper panel.

Little drawing issues

I want to work on several mandarin paintings and I’m off to a good start. The little drawing and proportion difficulties are bugging me. I decided to trace and overlay from the photo to check my first painting.

Set Up

Source Photo

The first painting is by eye, using a grid.

Check out this video about procrastination and the benefits of reworking an idea or image.   https://youtu.be/M6NsEDwHHiE

Mandarins1

Sketch

 Unfinished Mandarins 2

There are changes to proportion, but my mistakes aren’t as glaring as I had supposed while doing the work.