Painting a simple still life - IV

New Kid in Town, progress • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

The painting is finally beginning to come into its own. Here, I've worked on the edge of the box behind the left apple, thinned the vertical charcoal line, and brought a pale apricot-ish color into the background on the right. I've also brought more yellow into the background on the left, evening out the color somewhat.

I've used scumbling extensively. (To see a scumbling demonstration, see "Scumbling video lesson with Jan Blencowe.") Not only have I used it to soften the shadows under the apples (I've also brought some of the red of the apples into the shadows), but I have also used it to soften the colors of the apples themselves, as well as their highlights. On the apples, I rubbed the paint around with the edge of a paper towel (and used my fingers - but please, use the paper towel - it may be less expedient, but it's just as effective, and much safer).

Where will the painting go next? When a painting gets to this point, it's wise to step back and consider well before each step – one little brush stroke may be all it needs. In my dialogue with the painting, my job here is to listen well. It may take the painting a while to speak to me, so need to sit and look and listen for as long as it takes. I'll let this painting tell me where it wants to go next – but I think I'm likely to tone down the intensity of the yellow in the background. I may also bring some layers of glazing over the apples - but we'll see.

Painting a simple still life - III

New Kid in Town, progress • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Back to the three little red apples.... Finally, I've added the stems! And a little bit more highlighting on the apples....

These apples have, for me, had specific personalities and interrelationships since I redrew them in charcoal, leaning them in directions slightly different from reality. They've also had a title, since soon after I began blocking in the color – which sometimes happens for me in a painting. New Kid in Town seems to sum up the sense of an outsider approaching a pair, with each apple in the pair leaning in or away in different relation to the "new kid."

New Kid in Town, progress • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

These later stages of the painting are where the personalities of the apples are really seeming to emerge – but where I can take them now depends on the big shapes of the composition underneath, and getting the composition right in the early stages.

Here, additional work on the highlights on the apples and their stems really brings the viewer's eye in to these focal points.

I've also corrected the edge behind the apple on the left. The increased intensity of the yellows are now crying out to me for change. With the details on the stems, the vertical line of the charcoal no longer works for me – so these two things will probably be the first things I develop next.

Painting a simple still life - II

Three Apples still life, progress • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Remember them apples?

Here, you can see the progression of the process of this painting, from setting up the composition (missing photos of the thumbnails - but I did them); to drawing and adjusting the composition, to blocking in the big shapes of color, to refining those shapes and colors, and addressing values.

Three Apples still life, progress • © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here, those dark values have been softened by layers of scumbled color. The edges of dark shadows have been lightened and softened (there were multiple sources of light, explaining why the shadows are spread in more than one direction).

I have left the vertical black charcoal line untouched - I like it. It anchors the apples nicely in their place (and divides the space by the Golden Ratio, or the Golden Mean - a blog post for another time - which is pleasing to the eye).

There is plenty yet to do - bringing in the highlights on the apples, painting their stems, adjusting the lower left edge, and further refining of the shadows among them. Depending on how much detail I want to get into, I could push this to a very detailed place, continuing to refine it further and further (something I'm not as likely to do, given my inclinations as a painter). This is how a painting evolves!

Painting a simple still life - I

Three Apples still life, class demonstration • photo © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Beginning with the drawn-in composition from the last post, it's now time to get out the paint. It is all too human to hear the siren call of little tiny detail – and much trickier to remember to see the big picture (see my posts on Seeing the Big Picture - I, II, and III).

Resist the call! Blocking in the big shapes of the painting will establish your composition, give you a sense about values, and get the white canvas covered. Getting the canvas covered is more important than you may think. If you focus on establishing detail in one or two areas of the painting, and ignore the white of the canvas in other places, that white will become more and more important, and you may feel more hesitant about what to put there. As you wait longer and longer to get something down, it gets harder and harder to decide. Skip the frustration by putting something down right away!

Three Apples still life, class demonstration • photo © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Once you've got the big shapes blocked in – working all over the canvas – then you can begin to break those big shapes into smaller and smaller areas –

The process of painting is like a conversation. At the beginning of the conversation, you will be doing most of the talking (painting). But remember to pause and listen... the painting will have things to tell you – things you won't know unless you stop, back up, look, and listen. Turn it upside down! Let it talk to you. Sometimes you'll need to wait. Don't charge back into the painting until you know where the painting wants to take you next. When in doubt, keep listening.

Three Apples still life, class demonstration • photo © 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here, I'm pushing the values darker – these apples needed a little more solidity. The darks won't stay that dark – but I need these darks underneath, to make everything work the way I want it to. Remember, this is a process – don't expect the middle of the process to look anything like the end. The middle of the process is like green goo – it can get pretty ugly. Don't judge it! Just hang in there, and keep going on to the next step.

Starting an acrylic painting with a charcoal drawing

Still life set-up • © photo 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Here's a new way of starting a painting with an acrylic drawing. Above, I've begun with a simple still life arrangement.

I've underpainted the canvas in a mid-value color (in this case, Cadmium Yellow Deep). Since these photographs are of a second demonstration over the top of the first, you can see something of the first demonstration underneath.

Still life composition, drawn in charcoal • © photo 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

This method uses vine charcoal, a drawing medium that can be easily erased - but that also can be absorbed into and darken the paints, when you paint over your initial composition. How can you prevent the charcoal from getting into the paint? Some people draw their composition, and then erase it, leaving a ghost of the drawing to guide them. Here's another method that allows you to draw in charcoal, leave the lines, and keep the charcoal from getting into your acrylic paint.

Draw your composition in, using Vine Charcoal (not compressed charcoal). Vine charcoal is easily erased with the edge of a paper towel as you make alterations to your composition. Look at the composition upside down, to make sure it works. Do you see shadows of the alterations I'd made on the first demonstration, underneath this?

In this second demonstration, without the arrangement above in front of me, I also altered it by leaning two of the apples in towards each other, a change that I think creates a more interesting dynamic.

Mixing a gesso solution • © photo 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

For the next step, mix gesso (primer for canvases, pronounced jess´-oh) and water in about 50/50 proportions. I prefer to use a pourable gesso rather than a thicker gesso for this. For my demonstration here I've used Liquitex's student grade gesso. Make sure the new gesso solution is not too thin and runny (the results then would be like what you see above, from my first demonstration. The wateriness of my solution allowed the charcoal to run more than you'll want).

Still life composition • © photo 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Next, you will apply the gesso solution to the canvas, allowing it to fix the charcoal drawing (make it permanent, so it can be painted over). The best way to do this is to brush the solution inside and up to the lines, not brushing it across the lines, which will smear the charcoal into the gesso solution.

Still life composition • © photo 2011 Karen Lynn Ingalls

Finally, once each area is covered, go back over the entire canvas, painting the gesso solution over any parts of the lines you haven't covered yet. Allow it to dry, and then you can move to the next step, blocking in your colors.

One step at a time - beginning a painting

When you're beginning a painting from a subject, the same principles apply, whether it's a still life, landscape, or portrait, and whether it's realist, impressionist, expressionist, abstracted, or some other style. You can only take one step at a time – and you can't get to the end before you've begun.

Generally, new painters want to skip the preliminary steps and go straight to painting luscious detail. But – you can trust me on this – if you skip the preliminary steps, you will go far awry. Then you'll get depressed and frustrated and want to chuck the whole thing - pain that you can save yourself by just taking things one step at a time.

In this demonstration, Gregg Kreutz "Market Flowers" DVD from Liliedahl Video, on YouTube, artist Gregg Kreutz begins by catching the essential gesture of his still life subject. This also establishes the placement of the subject in his composition.

Next, he begins blocking in the large shapes (he has toned the canvas beforehand).

Then he turns his attention to the background. Notice as you watch the video that he does not paint with black – he mixes his darks, creating a much more interesting color.

Only then, once he has established the basic shapes of the composition, does he begin to break the painting down into smaller shapes and greater detail. Here is the final painting, as he puts down the last brush stroke. Although this video clip doesn't show you the intermediary steps, he is very clear that how he has begun is essential for getting these lovely results.

The process is the same, whatever style or genre you're working in: you can only take it one step at a time.

Carol Marine painting demonstration

Daily painter Carol Marine creates a small still life painting, of a bell pepper, in the instruction video Carol Marine Daily Painting Demo. She paints on a canvas with a yellow underpainting, and begins by making marks indicating the outer edges of the pepper and its shadow. Next, she draws in the shapes of her composition. Nice use of the negative space, isn't it?

Once her composition is laid out, she begins blocking in the big shapes of her painting, both in the positive and negative space.

She paints quickly (she's had a lot of practice). Notice how she uses her brush strokes in the negative space to help define the positive shapes?

Notice how she moves from larger shapes to smaller ones as she develops the painting? The lovely details of highlights and small shadows on the pepper and its stem work well, because the structure of the composition underneath it works.

You can see more of her artwork online at bluecloudstudios.com, and you can read her blog at carolmarine.blogspot.com.

Jerry Fresia's Painting Class Video

Painter Jerry Fresia, who moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to a wonderful castle on Italy's Lake Como, demonstrates his painting process in the YouTube video A Painting Class on Lake Como, Italy. It's a great time-lapse glimpse of how a painting is constructed.

He begins by sketching his composition in charcoal on the canvas, then rubs it out, and paints in the basic composition. Notice how the composition is clearly indicated, but that he does not need to draw specific detail. This stage is all about making a beautiful structure upon which everything else will depend.

He follows with an underpainting (he is painting in oils). Notice the gorgeous colors he is mixing, and the subtlety of shadowed areas that will influence what comes on top of it.

After painting some of the lines in again, he comes back in with color, and brings the painting to completion. This is the point at which he gets more specific about colors and smaller details – not before. As you watch the video, notice his brushwork, too, and how each brushstroke is created by the movement of his whole arm.

Be sure to listen to his explanation of his painting process as you watch the video – he teaches clearly and well.

You can find all of Jerry Fresia's videos by going to www.YouTube.com and typing in his user name, FresiaStudios. He teaches workshops at his beautiful studio – and you can learn more about his paintings, his studio, and his workshops at www.fresia.com.

Blocking in the composition of a painting

Every painting begins by blocking in the composition. There may be as many variations of how to do this as there are painters, but we still share the basics.

In class, we talked about drawing in the lines of the composition, either with paint, or water-soluble fabric pencils or fabric markers (whose lines will dissolve when we come along with water and acrylic paint). Then you begin blocking in the big shapes of your painting. It's all very rough at this stage - you don't want to even think about the details yet.

Painter Jerry Fresia, originally from San Francisco but now living in Lake Como, Italy, has posted a great example of how to block in a painting in "A Painting Class on Lake Como, Italy." While he is painting in oils rather than acrylics, and begins drawing his composition with charcoal initially (vine charcoal is often used by oil painters for this), his process is basically the same one I demonstrate in class.

Notice how he also chooses to scumble in his colors initially (not as necessary for acrylic painters as oil painters) and how he works from darks to lights. He breaks down his painting process into different stages of development that are helpful to see. And while you're watching, enjoy the views of Lake Como and the beautiful castle he lives in!