hey....a bottle and lemons...

Hey again....I've been SUPER bad about updating this blog.  My sincerest apologies.  (if you say that with an English accent, it sounds even more sincere)  

Life has been so incredibly crazy that I simply haven't had the time to update or really even paint something decent other than the classes I've been teaching.  I was traveling and volunteering for a fund raiser and chaperoning ballerinas out of state and then spring hit, and it's gardening time (and I have a LOT of gardens)....too busy, in my opinion.  

So, here's a little bit about a "glass" class I taught to one of my private students.  Hope you enjoy it.

I staged this on my kitchen table in the sunshine.  I really wanted to stage it with limes...b/c you know the commercial "you put the lime in the Coke, you nut, and shake it alllllll up"...but I was fresh out of limes...hence the title, "Fresh Out Of Limes", so I used lemons instead.  I was really drawn to the shadows in this one.

So, I masked the highlights and the Coca-Cola words.  Anywhere the light hit, I masked.  This doesn't take long.

I started out with a Viridian Green and Payne's Gray with a bit of Prussian Blue mixed in.  I wet one whole section at a time to get the general first wash colors.  The top section first and then the bottom section.

Control your pigment with a thirsty brush.

After that dried, I'm starting to layer on some of the shapes and shadows.  For the bottle and lemon shadow, I wet that whole area and then put some salt on it.

Here are another few layers of color.  I'm using Alizarin Crimson and Lemon Yellow on the label and for the lemons.  I like my colors to be vibrant.  At this stage, I'm thinking about the background....a lot.  I decided to put corresponding shapes alongside the bottle and lemon shadows.  I don't know why I decided this, it just seemed like a good idea.

There's really not rhyme or reason for the things that I do.  I have no art training, I just trust my instincts, really.  

The first wash on the lemons.  You always have to be careful using purple over yellow b/c you might end up with brown...but you won't if you're super careful.  :)  Wet the whole lemon first and lightly lay on the colors.  I used the same viridian green with the yellow for the underside. 

Here's the first wash on the background for you.  It was Prussian Blue wet on wet.  The background lemon only has one wash on it.  I like the contrast of the white paper against the blue, don't you?

So, here's the end result.  I've laid on another wash on the background...taken off the masking fluid and "softened" up all the edges and corners of things to get a nice "glow".  It has a certain appeal with the lights and the darks of the painting.  These were taken with my camera phone, so the "white" of the paper came out pink in the photo, but that's the white of the paper there in that middle stripe.  Also, the background color is more blue in real life, but I'm really too lazy to take a photo with a real camera right now since I have to be OUT THE DOOR to piano lessons in 15 minutes...oh and the painting isn't even here...it's in the gallery now.  ha ha.

I hope this was informative!  I'd love to hear back from you!  Feel free to try this project, if you'd like.

Happy Painting! 

Cady