The first step to my Apples and a Pot painting is to gesso the canvas. Gessos(ing) the canvas helps the canvas absorb the paint. After the canvas dries, I apply burnt senna thin layer to give a simple background. Next, I blocked out the different section for where each object takes place.
The step to the painting is more detailed. I give the object more shape so that you know exactly what you are looking at now. I also drew in the bird that I had not notice before hand in this still life. The background garment was also painted in.
I mixed dark blue and orange paint to make brown background. I made different shades of brown to show the dark and light parts. I work on the Apples with bright red and dark red paint to make a delicious apple. I messed around with the green for the top of the apples with some yellow orchid. Then the bird was two faced witha shadow. I mixed bright red and yellow orchid for the dark and a small amount of white to make the lighter side of the bird.
I started on the cover of the books, their binding, and their pages. The top book, I took bright yellow paint and mixed with alot of mineral spirits. The other book covers plus the outline of the first book, I used a mixture of dark blue and dark red paint giving a purple but very close to dark black paint. Then, I painted the magazine that is locatedunderneath everything else. I mixed orange and dark blue paint to create a gray-ish paint. To show the still-life image on the top of the magazine, I just took a little bit of white paint in the gray to show an image.
I worked on my apples dark to light. The highlights on my apples, I mixed a tad bit of light blue paint with bright red and white. Then I took my paint brush and pressed down on the canvas then I would wipe off my paint brush giving the highlight a swiping look. I fixed one of my apples because it seemed to be formed wrong on the bottom so I painted the top of the blue bowl higher to cover my mistake. Next, I painted on my books. I had to show the different surfaces by the color of the shades on the cover of the books. Plus, I put a shadow behind the bird.
