August 14, 2017

July Painting Challenge – Conclusions and Notes

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

• Started with 20 Exhibition Wood Cradled Panels from Opus – 15 were 8″ X 10″ slim panels (3/4″ deep) and 5 were 8″ X 8″ deep panels (1.5″ deep)
• 3 coats of gesso applied to each panel with a light sanding between coats
• 6 panels were covered with found paper and another 3 coats of clear gesso with a light sanding between coats
• 9 panels were gessoed in black, grey or Venetian Red gesso
• 3 panels were covered with gesso tinted with acrylic paint – light blue and yellow
• The edges of all of the panels were gessoed black and I covered them with green painter’s tape while I was painting

• Each day I started with about a half hour of drawing, often of the same subject that I would then paint. I found this very helpful to get a feel for the values of the subject matter with graphite or charcoal prior to taking on the paint.
• I began most of the paintings with a very quick charcoal sketch directly on the panel.
• I spent between one hour and an hour and a half painting each panel.
• I painted with two spot lights – one directed to my subject matter and one to my easel and kept the blinds closed in order to control the light.

Day 7 a

Day 7 b

Day 7 c

Day 7 d

Day 7 e

Day 9 a

Day 9 b

Day 9 c

Day 12 a

Day 12 b

Day 14

• I played a lot with outlines which flatten the image, but then adding volume into the objects themselves with gradated values.
• Trying to keep the edges sharp was tedious with oil paint and my lines became very inconsistent as a result, which annoyed me. Distinct outlines also created issues regarding shadows and light reflected off the edges of objects and how to portray that in a simplified manner.
• On Day Fourteen, I decided to soften all of my edges – with a favourable outcome.
• I should have known better and not cut the a lemon off on two sides on Day Seven. There was no way I was going to be able to make that lemon 3 dimensional after that. And I completely forgot to add the shadow under the bowl.
• I really need to avoid outlining round objects until I learn to draw a better circle. This was a problem in Day Seven and again on Day Thirteen.
• My lights were quite bright and the room fairly dark, which sometimes resulted in a fairly dark painting, as in Day Nine.
• On Day Twelve I roughed in a few colours onto the pears and was about to start blending them in and then decided I liked it how it was and I just stopped.
• Prussian blue is one of my favourite colours and it turned up in eight of the paintings and the combination of Prussian blue and burnt umber appeared in six of them.
• The last 3 days I used all of the same colours.