Pumpkin Study

Since it's the beginning of Fall around New England, it is appropriate that last night's study was to paint a pumpkin. Of the various pumpkins/squashes, I decided that I liked the look of this particular one. I was also intrigued by the challenge of making a fairly light colored object thrust forward.

In this study, I paid more attention to the massing of the pumpkin. I laid out the basic dark background (made it darker than usual so that the pumpkin would stand out) and then laid down the general light mass and dark mass color of the pumpkin.

An extremely important aspect, pointed out by my instructor (Karen Winslow), was that I needed to think of the painting as a mosaic. To this date, I've been over-blending and my colors have been more muted. However, using the mosaic approach, I can keep the strong colors and then get the blended effects near the color edges.

Using this approach, from a distance, the pumpkin retained it's strong colors and contrasts against the dark background. Also, the edges of the shadow area lose themselves into the table/background.