Painting Bowls

A beautiful late winter morning greeted me this morning and I knew how I wanted to spend this day. Alone in my studio, music playing, coffee brewing and painting. I'm still working on a series involving bowls (click HERE and HERE for previous post and pictures) and have sold 3 bowl paintings so far through the Dayboro Art Gallery.

I often get asked about painting and thought I'd blog about how I go about it. Here are the canvas's, drafted up with where I want to situate the bowls. To do this, I mix a little oil paint (burnt umber) and turpentine and plot directly onto the canvas with a paint brush.

The long painting leaning against the bottom of my easel is one I started earlier this year, on a canvas that my father made for me (thanks Dad!), but was not happy with the background colour. There is a photograph clipped to the top, left hand side of the easel, of my very creative friend Candy's (click HERE and check out her wonderful blog) hand built saggar bowls that I am working from.

I think the lighter background colour makes this painting look better already, the bowls will stand out much more.

After I finish working out where I want the bowls, I start by painting in the background colour, fairly thin, loose and light, and then add a bit of shadow. Following this I know I have to step back for a little while, because my biggest problem is not giving enough thought to each step of the developing painting, so I am going to go and have a cuppa and ponder colour, theme, etc. I find I need to take breaks, because taking time and pondering helps me capture those ideas flickering around the corners of my mind, and if I keep going, I miss these opportunities to include this stuff in my paintings. Hope that makes sense!