As the glorious summer fades and the nights grow cooler, it is time to head back to school. I’ve moved back in to my studio at Gage and joined three returning classmates and met four new ones. After a bunch of organizing and unpacking, I started on my first still life for the atelier.
I thought I’d start the year with green and purple chiaroscuro. I set up the scene about three weeks ago, but didn’t get around to painting it until this week. Was happily surprised that nothing spoiled and that the green onion began to take on interesting shapes as its shoots dried.
Here’s the combined sketch/underpainting. I’m getting much faster now. I drew the shapes with a paintbrush and then blocked in the values all in about 30 minutes.
After two brief sessions, the painting is coming along well. I still need to do a bunch of work adding volume, texture and detail to the green onion.
Here’s Gary’s 15 minute interpretation of the same scene. I like how he used more colors and brighter colors and how he brought the image up out of a rough masses.