Cherries Wrap

I'm feeling that there's two sides with this exercise--proper technique and accurate seeing. The more I look at these cherries, the more detail appears, especially in the subtleness of the reflections. Practice...

Cherries Study 2 closing in

 There's about 6-7 hours work here today. I really enjoy dropping in highlights and reflections.

Cherries Study 2 cont.

Here's a couple of hours work, slowly and lightly building up layers. Tomorrow I'll glaze viridian before going back to blues and reds. Then, a bit of highlight work to help out the form.

Various earth glazes.

Red and blue glazes.

Cherries Study - Start of Second Round

Here's the very beginning of another try at glazing all kinds of pigments. I'll try to remember to take scans as the work progresses. Got a very late start this evening so there's less than an hour's work here. I'm practicing brushstrokes, trying to lay down just a hint of color with each stroke. You'll see some blotchiness where I was a bit too heavy-handed. I enjoy the practice; it's a meditative exercise.  When I get in the right zone I can pay attention to every stroke, and that's when I can work in a nice softness of transition.

Cherries Study

I took Dorothy's advice (see her comment in Sunday's post). I see a lot of potential with her method and will work this study over a few more times. Thank you Dorothy! This is fascinating stuff!

The board really is this yellow as it's a leftover from a sorry mistake that ended up being scraped off. Just couldn't get all the color out easily but  it's a good practice board.

Work Continues

Sponged in the background with glazes of burnt umber, ultramarine blue, and viridian. Mixed ultramarine blue and irgazine red to try homing in on the cherries--that is, rather than simply glazing. Finally, stubbed in the stems with white, just to place markers.

Simply dropping in the background and firming up the shadows seemed to lend a sense of it all pulling together. Soon I want to model the cherries particularly the stem hollows--that bit of shape that sings cherry.

A Bit More

It's slowly coming together. Some days it's tough to get started, but it's all in the getting going. Once under way, I can go for hours. I've been working mainly with glazes and although there's nothing wrong with that, there are times when some opacity with a bit titanium white is helpful. I'll be getting to that next.

Getting Started

Just a real rough in for tonight. It's my second board--the first quickly went by the wayside. I do learn plenty from my mistakes! :-)

A Better Bowl

I think this is much closer than yesterday's image to a good composition . I can feel a bit more tweaking here but I'll sleep on it.

I found the bowl about the house. The black background is a tee shirt. The white surface is a foot square piece of marble tile I picked up at Home Depot this afternoon. The cherries were all I had left after last night's devouring.

Edit: A couple of hours later, after another shoot and bit of cropping... No cleanup processing here as I'm just looking at composition.

Bowl of Cherries

Here's a start on ideas for a new painting. I like the bowl of cherries idea but not sure on the scaling yet. I could put the bowl on a stone shelf--I left some height off the image to accommodate that.

I see now that it's useful to develop ideas prior to being in need. And, it's good to collect props too.

Cherries

Here are instructions on completing the third exercise:

Study your selections. How might you render one of them using the fewest brush strokes possible? Can you capture the "essence" of a tulip, or a banana --or the daffodil below -- in just a few strokes? Try it.

This is important. It can help break the habit of over-producing a painting, and can foster the sense that some of the most beautiful paintings are delicate and quickly rendered in nature.

Try this until you truly tire of it. Loosen up your arm, try not to be so invested in the results. Then make a selection, scan and submit. Of course, if you have questions, include them in the margins of your paintings, or in your journal.

A began on the left with some transferred shapes and then worked my way to the right simply making shapes with brush. I felt like I was picking up a nice easy method as I worked through the last few cherries, getting to the "essence" of cherry.

Permanent Alizarin Crimson with various amounts of Payne's Gray. Stems with good old Viridian in just one stroke by pushing into the brush for the abscission zone.

I like that thought about overlaying stems. Now I should try overlaying the fruit themselves. Hey, this could turn into a bowl of cherries! :-)