I have been taking several interesting and fun workshops ONLINE in the past few years. It's a COVID dodge, as well as, time to learn new or refresh older art skills and just have fun. A recent class I found on Kara Bullock Art - was a "Dynamic Still Life" oil painting course by Sarah Sedwick.
I am not a big fan of 'still life' painting. Perhaps I will be working on that ~ but the jury is still out.
What I took away from this course are all those things I already knew. The correct way to produce art in oil or any medium for that matter. I am so accustomed to true Alla Prima painting. In other words, just stepping up to the easel and going for it in one fell swoop. But this process makes more sense to me for serious 'artworking' and always has - I just don't take the time, usually. Maybe that comes from the fact that I usually paint animals or people - and hoping to make them a true likeness doesn't take a lot of prep for me.
The still life was set-up by the instructor, then quick sketches were made to choose the most pleasing composition. I am not including my sketches - as I don't have photos of them at this time.
After sketching and picking a compositional pleasing one - we did a black and white value study.
I did this one on Arches Oleo oil paint paper - love this stuff! The onions look like garlic in this step - but this painting is supposed to be mostly about a value study.
The COLOR mixing part of this workshop was KEY. I learned some new things about mixing color!
Next is using the substrate that is intended for the final painting, in this case, a 9" x 12" Raymar linen panel. DO an underpainting in golden brown
Then I added the darkest darks - the cast shadow and negative shadow spaces.
Next working on the color.
Last - the final painting.
"Green Onions"
9" x 12"
oil painting on Raymar linen board
I had an exciting end to this whole process when I was trying to get the finished canvas to an area in the studio that would not cast extreme light on it, as it was wet and would show shine. In the action of doing this, I dropped the painting face-down onto the floor near the cat box. Of course, there were little pebbles of cat litter on the floor and they stuck all over the painting. I had to spend about a half hour meticulously picking off the damage and repainting/touching up the places it had messed with the final piece...it was typical of me to drop it - those kinds of things happen often in my day.
CLUTZ.
