Still Life: Back to Basics

Now that I'm done with working extra hours for my main job, back to my second job: painting. This week, I was able to go back to my painting class.... and it was not pretty. I had forgotten a lot of the basics (massing the shadows, massing the lights, etc) and my painting showed it.

So, back to the basics. When starting working with still life setups, the first thing that we learned was to paint round objects. On a round object, there is a highlight and you modulate the values to create the roundness. Important points, such as not putting the darkest or lightest parts on the edge of the material help create a roundness.

So, time to play with a simple apple. Here's the start. Essentially, I just massed the light area, the dark area and defined the basic areas where my light is hitting. The next step is to work on the apple to give it that round feeling. Once that is done, then I can start working on the reflected lights and the reflection on the table (to create more of a realistic illusion).

However, with every journey, there is just the first step.