Saturday, November 30, 2013

Nicnaks in the Greenhouse Window

Sometimes, artists are given little vignettes of beauty in their surroundings.  One morning I was offered one such scene. The early morning sun was shining thorough the Greenhouse window. My greenhouse window is a collector of nicnaks, often randomly placed. I quickly took a picture and went on my way.
While uploading and editing other pics of still life compositions, this lone image again caught my interest. I cropped it to fit a square canvas.
I drew the image onto a 16x16" canvas using the grid method. I am underpainting it in a combo of black and burnt umber with oms as my medium. I chose to underpaint it instead of my usual direct method for a couple of reasons. Because it is a busy composition, I wanted to make sure the play of strong lights and darks works and allows me to check for drawing errors before I apply colour.
Here is the painting with the underpainting partially completed.