The second session will be here on
Monday 17th May
at
6PM UK time (10AM Pacific, 1PM Eastern)
Pop back here when we’re due to start. Don’t forget to pop into the chat and say hi!
What we’ll be doing
We’ll be having a look at this subject in two parts:
In this first session, we’ll be doing a value study in the same way as we did in session one.
This will give everyone a chance to go over the blending skills again (and ellipse drawing) but with a real world object this time.
The shape of this bowl and its surface also creates some further modelling factors – most notably reflected light – that are extremely important in creating a realistic painting and are best approached on value only first.
In the second session on this bowl (session three of the workshop), the following week, we’ll be using the values from this session to extrapolate the colour, looking at chroma and (somewhat less importantly) hue.
Doing it in two parts like this will really underline the fact that colour comes from value first. If the values are good, then we can build on that foundation. If they’re not, adding chroma and hue won’t help much – in fact it will probably make matters worse!
In the live session, I’ll also be showing how I’ve chosen the local colours for this subject. Since there is a lot of variation on the surface of the bowl, we have to decide what we’re going to use as the broad, general local for each area of the bowl.
From there, it gets really interesting in session three when we use the locals together with the values we’ve painted in this session to help us get the colours fo the light and the shadow right.
This really is the heart of this method, everything follows from this.
What you’ll need
Surface: A panel or similar, 8 x 10 inches. I’d recommend an Ampersand Gessobord panel. Most oil painting papers will be ok too, as long as they’re not too absorbent. If you’re not sure, a coat of acrylic primer or acrylic gesso is a good idea. Please note that if you use something different than the ampersand boards, I can’t be sure how your surface will react to the oil couch that we put down first.
Brushes: Largely personal preference, it’s not critical for this subject. I’ll be painting mostly with hog filberts, 1/4 and 1/2 inch, with a couple of larger ones for the background.
Palette: As before, this is a value study, so you’ll just need:
- Titanium White
- Raw Umber
- Ivory Black
Please have your basic value scale mixed and ready to go before the session, I won’t be going over that again live this time.
Premix values 3, 5 and 7 of the Munsell scale. It doesn’t matter if they’re perfect neutrals, but use a mix of ivory black, raw umber and white for each. The value, of course, is crucial! Make sure you mix big enough piles since we’ll be mixing between those values as we go.
Medium: Linseed oil and a solvent (turps, gamsol or similar).
Reference Photos
Value photo (we’ll be using this one in the session).
Full colour photo, we’ll be using this one next week.
