Process: Oil Painting Still Life (Week 26)

     This week, I began to actually paint my still life!

     I commenced my painting by first starting the grisaille underpainting. This type of underpainting, which is characterized by its white highlights and black shadows, is critical in the indirect painting process, as it establishes value throughout the work. After it is completed, one can begin to add light glazes of color to maintain the rich values in the underpainting.

     At first, this grisaille underpainting was pretty challenging for me, but as I began to mix white and black paints as well as turpentine together, I was able to start seeing some definite value in my work. One piece of advice that really helped me was the definition of form; one needs three values - a light, dark, and mid-tone - in order to define form and shape in a painting. When I first started to paint, I did not know of this fact, leading me to paint flat objects that took away from the intended dimension of the composition. This definition was particularly helpful when I began to paint complex forms, but I tried my best to simply the shapes just down to their values to move forward. The grisaille underpainting has taken me longer to complete than expected, but I think that if I keep analyzing the shapes with at least three colors, I will be able to find success. Despite the longevity of this part of the process, I have found painting really enjoyable and rewarding, and I look forward to continue to work on the still life.