Still Life: Copper Pot and apple

During my class last night, we worked on cylinders again. Since I've been having trouble laying down too much paint and not getting my shapes drawn correctly, I worked more on a simple painting (other artists chose more complex ones with flowers). I'll be more confident doing the flowers once I get my basic shapes down on a regular basis.

While painting the copper pot, I learned a couple of things that I tend to forget. First of all, don't worry about the reflections, shadows, etc on the structure. The first task is to get the drawing done correctly and then lay out the basic values so that the pot is rounded. Once that is completed (and you've defined where the light source is coming from), you can then worry about the other features on the pot.

So, in my case, I first massed the table, background, pot and apple. By squinting, I needed to make sure that the relative values (compared to each other) was correct. I wasn't worried about the color. I just needed to make sure that the background was lighter than the table, the table was slightly lighter than the pot and the apple front was lighter than the pot, but not as light as the highlight. In addition, the sides of the apple was of the same value as the dark side of the pot.

Karen helped by adding a couple of touches here and there, but nothing major. I also made sure that the shadow on the table was linked to the base of the pot and then moved up the side of the pot.