I finally got around to painting the background for my lemons and limes painting. This time I’m trying to give the shadows a more nuanced treatment where they start sharp, crisp and dark on the left near the light source, and then feather out and become lighter as they move to the right. At the same time, the background transitions from light on left to mid-tone on the right.

It looks great, but the thing that really excites me is the paint texture. I kind of stumbled on to it – as I was trying to lighten up the left side painting, I accidentally left some globs of Titanium White on the surface and they looked really good so I added some more.

The textured paint makes the light seem even brighter and I think it will harmonize nicely with the textured paint that I plan to use for the lemons and limes.