Thursday, July 26, 2012

5 DEGREES OF A STILL LIFE ...

So finally I decided to take photos of creative stages while painting still life. First I set up a very cute still life  with two pieces of Talavera ceramic and sunflowers .
Then I prepared my canvas according to the recipe of one of the greatest colorists in this country. I wont mention his name in this post as he is an extremely private person - That mix is very smelly and toxic so be careful if you'll decide to use it. It does create a very great base for  thick brush strokes applications. 1part Damar & 2.5 - 3 parts Turpentine with a few drops of linseed oil. Tone the canvas with very light wash of  phtalo  blue and black. After the mix is dried , draw your composition.
Mine is here:

The second stage is very important as it's actually require  a special treatment of whole canvas before starting to paint  and apply a very thick  applications of paint. You start with rubbing in very transparent washes of pure pigment almost like watercolor with paint running off your canvas .Please note, the colors of washes  can be absolutely randome. See my stage 2 photo.Of course I, kinda, created  color of washes close to the basic hue of the whole setting .
Looks pretty wild , isn't it? Don't panic :-) it's an initial wash which will be completely covered . But the tone will still obscure through further layers of paint .
This is number 3 stage , and believe you or not , it's always my favorite stage in any painting process - I just love that raw, unfinished look. Spontaneity of it, and usually the right tonality from the start . But lot's of work on the details ahead , so let go straight to stage 4 to see how we progressing  with building layers of thick paint up.

As you can see both of Talavera pieces are acquired believable shapes and color, but we starting to mix lot's of grays . Yes , hard to believe? Take my word for it. That;s how powerful grays tones are : you can't really see them , surrounding colors starting to sing.

And here is final result . I titled it "Girasol" just to give the hint of Mexican flavor. Because Talavera is a beautiful Mexican pottery. This piece is for sale by the way:-)
HAPPY PAINTING EVERYONE!


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