Painting #3

Today I'm working on painting #3 from the Qiang Huang workshop. I printed a photo of my still life set up from the workshop and am painting from that reference because I don't own the teapot and the flowers have died. The lighting at the workshop wasn't great (a fluorescent bulb) and even though Qiang had me warm it up once, it was still too cool. Today I'm using a natural light bulb with blue filter overlay to simulate North light (Qiang's idea).

First I warm up the background, paint over most of the handle to push it back, add more warmth to the body of the teapot and simplify the linen. I will indicate the handle in a much more abbreviated manner than in my original painting.

Working on still life objects again reminds me of when I worked as a fashion illustrator just out of art school. Being the newest artist on staff, I was the person who illustrated perfume bottles, handbags and even a sack of TurfBuilder! As an illustration, I would want the teapot handle to appear as much like "real life" as possible - thick and dark, which made it come forward instead of taking a supporting role to the flowers and orange which are the center of interest in this painting. I begin to define the shape of the flowers by cutting into them with a dark area of the teapot.

 This is as far as I could get today. I'll set it aside and think about it. Click on the image to enlarge.