Sunday, June 3, 2012

Lesson 3 Beautiful Watermelons!

I hope you'll bear with me as I post these lessons.  I'd love to get some original paintings posted soon, but I've been enjoying Dan Edmondson's painting course so much and my painting time is limited during the week.

For Lesson #3, Dan sent a gorgeous photo of delicious looking bright red watermelon against a black background.  Talk about a show stopper!  It was a relatively difficult assignment, although Dan's guidance helped a lot.  Once again, I tried for very pure, intense color.  I concentrated on using lots of paint with each brush stroke and painting with confidence.  I literally did not take the cover off of my OMS canister...and the only medium I used was walnut oil.  I'm beginning to get the knack of this approach.  It does seem to require more brushes, however, because it is easiest to try to use a single brush for light colors and another for dark...and in some cases, a single brush for certain colors.  Since the brushes are only wiped clean - not rinsed in OMS - this helps keep the colors clean.   For the most part, I feel like it worked.  There are some areas that I may come back to today...or perhaps when the paint has set a bit.

Lesson #3 Watermelon   9" x 12" oil on canvas panel (with 2 extra coats of acrylic gesso)

Another energizing lesson.  This is so much fun and so educational at the same time!

UPDATE:  I spent a little more time on the shadows under the plums, the cast shadows on the two sections of watermelon and on trying to get the grape colors more accurate.  I think it improved the result.  The picture above is with those changes made.  (6.4.12)




2 comments :

  1. All three lessons are interesting for their vivid colors and technique. Probably a good idea to raise one's head up and look around at other approaches. Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Kansas. As I mentioned in one post, it first seemed funny to be taking 'correspondence course" painting lessons, but I quickly realized that I have many, many things still to learn about painting techniques. Dan's approach is only one, of course, but it is completely new to me. I try not to lose sight of the fact that following Dan's technique and using his nicely done setups does not an original painting make. But man, it's a lot of fun.

    ReplyDelete