Fun With Gourds No. 5-----Three's a Crowd

Three's a Crowd
5 x 7", Oils on canvas covered hardboard
For the setup-pic-lovers among you, here's a photo below of the still life with the compositional placement of the painting. I usually do a painting in three stages. The first is the setup of the items and the basic positioning of them on the canvas. Because the gourds are such a warm color, I use transparent red oxide to sketch in the forms.

Once I have the placement set, I start putting in color for Phase 2, getting in the lights and darks and covering the canvas.

Once that stage is done, I take a short break to get my eyes off the subject for a few minutes, usually with a cup of tea and a browse on www.wetcanvas.com. When I come back to it, I do a check of each item, adjusting shadows, adding highlights, and putting in reflected color, plus pushing the lights and darks a little more.