Lemon and Bottle
Number six in the ten pairs of objects series, this one has a slightly different quality to the light than the previous paintings in this series.
I've noticed that where I set up in the room - how close to the window the set up is - makes a big difference to the quality of the light. This one was set up against the back wall, at right angles to the window, where the light is much more gentle and diffuse.
I like to do this every now and again because less dramatic lighting is harder to catch because there's less tonal variation. The last painting I did with this light was the last of the ten single objects series, and was also of a green bottle, all on it's lonesome. This bottle was bought on the same trip to Whitby as the one in the other painting, but is a bit dirtier. It's one of those bottles where they pinch the glass at the neck and drop in a marble before closing the top in, I think as a primitive kind of stopper.
Attentive visitors will also notice that I've included the cotton tea towel with the red stripe this time, to serve as a complimentary to the green of the bottle and to balance the composition by putting the strongest colour over to the right. The painting looked unbalanced until I put in the red stripes at the end.
Much of the texture in this painting comes from the ground, which was partly an accident. After reading about how Rubens used to leave brush strokes in his grey grounds so that they would show through the translucent glazed shadows and give them life, I've been doing the same for the panels I'm using now as supports throughout this series. But it's more noticeable in this painting. As I was setting up today, it struck me that the ground was a little too dark. I planned to paint the bottle with very thin paint to reflect the texture of the glass and to provide a contrast to the opaque paint on the lemon, but the tone of much of the bottle was a little lighter than my ground.
To lighten it, I sanded it back a little. It did lighten the tone overall, but it only took off the grey stain where the brush strokes of the acrylic gesso ground stood proud, leaving it in between the brushstrokes, so although I ended up with a lighter ground, I also ended up with considerably more texture. I haven't decided yet whether I like it or not. Also, most of the paint is very thinly applied, meaning that much more of the ground shows through. The only parts of the painting which have opaque paint which completely covers the ground are the parts of the lemon where full light brings out the yellow, the very front edge of the cloth, and the red stripes.
The small horizontal marks on the panel which you can see in this shot are the beginnings of the drawing out. I pick a point on the still life, the top of the bottle, say, and sight across to the panel using a brush held sideways. Fixing my eye on the point on the panel where I want this mark to go, I step over to the easel and place the line. The highest line on the panel here corresponds with the top of the bottle. I've also placed marks for the back edge of the tea towel, and the top and bottom of the lemon. By the time I get to this point, I've broken the 'blank canvas' trepidation and I'm into the painting.
The next stage is marking in some vertical lines to define the sides of the bottle and the left and right edges of the lemon, then I start to lay in the shadows with a warm glaze.
Another change today was no colour checker. It's not that I feel confident enough in my eye's ability to see colour correctly now, it's just that I'd covered it with a fresh coat of flat grey yesterday and it was still wet. All the same, I seem to have got by ok without it. I don't intend to stop using yet though, if ever. I know that my brain can still confuse me about what my eyes are seeing.
I couldn't see this painting when I'd finished it, I couldn't decide whether I liked it or not. It took a bit of time away from it, a couple of hours or se, before I could see it with fresh eyes. I decided I liked it. What made me look at it again was Michelle coming home from work and making some appreciative comments. Looking at it again at that point, I decided it was ok. But maybe that's just because some one said something nice about it.
I have decided that the next batch of panels I prepare will have a more even tone though, I think the texture of the ground in this one might be a bit too strong. After all, what I was painting didn't have a texture like that, and I've a feeling that the bottle would have lived more if I'd laid in the glazes on a smoother ground. I think I'll paint this bottle again on a smoother ground, maybe in the next series, and see what happens.
Just a quick word on the medium. For the last four paintings I've used Roberson's maroger medium, which I like very much. But I'm supposed to be doing some experiments with medium at the moment, so even though I didn't want to, I used the Roberson's Oil Painting Medium again. The last painting I used this medium in was the Garlic and Aubergine This medium is described in Cornelissens's catalogue as "double thick mastic varnish." Mastic apparently is a natural resin which comes from Mediterranean trees, but I think the Roberson's version is a synthetic substitute, since Cornelissen list it as a linseed oil/synthetic copal varnish mix. It's much slicker than the maroger, (which is like tube cheese,) and seemed especially liquid today. I'm wondering if the hot weather is changing it's consistency. One thing I am sure about is that this medium dries faster than the maroger does. A bit too fast for me, being a slow coach. There were times when I worked back into glazes I had put down an hour or more previously, and they had already begun to set, which made them more difficult to work with. I notice it drying faster on the palette too.
Despite the difference in consistency between this medium and the maroger, in actual use they weren't much different. I'll need to do some more experimenting to be sure, but the slower drying time of the maroger seems to work better for me with the way I'm building up the paintings at the moment. The only other real difference is that maroger dries to a satin finish, similar to the oil paint itself. This medium has a more gloss finish which it retains when it dries. I'm not a great fan of gloss finishes, the satin finish of the maroger seems more natural to me. I'll try this medium again to be sure, and if I still feel the same about it I'll relegate it to the back of the paint cupboard.
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