Demo Set-up

Her's the block-in and wipe out that I"ve prepared for the demo that I'm going to be giving tomorrow. I set the still life up in a box so that I can re-create the arrangement without worrying about the ambient lighting. I'm going to start by drawing directly on an 8" by 10" oil primed canvas. I'll be using the envelope, block-in and straight line drawing method. I'll talk about tilts, working from the center out, when to measure and staying true to the size of your original placement. Then, like one of those t.v. cooking shows that pulls a previously cooked dish out of the oven, I'll switch to the previously made wipe-out. I'll have all my color strings for the entire painting previously mixed (just before I get there) and the I'll proceed to paint the entire picture sort of like a poster, laying flat tone next to flat tone, concentrating on the larger forms and plane changes. Once that done I'll take a smaller brush and lay in intermediate colors across the separated values to model the light and subsequently the form. Phew! I'll have about two hours to pull off the entire scheme so I'll be painting fast and furious. The result will be raffled off. This is not a method for tightly rendering an image but it is great for alla prima quick studies and the small size helps a lot with quickly establishing color harmonies and tonalities.