Apples Ebauche

This is the ebauche underpainting for a small, 9"x12" oil on linen. I did a wipe out using W&N Greenish raw umber, and then after it was dry I did the color. I like to keep my ebauche kind of rough and basic. I know some artists, Tony Ryder, is one, like a very detailed underpainting. I like to keep that funky, abstract energy right up until the moment that I'm ready to start windowshading in full detail because I feel that some of that carries over into the tighter painting, which can look a little staid if you're not careful.
I've been spending the last few studio sessions putting together the Munsell student handbook. It comes with about 300 of these little squares that you have to organize by hue, value and chroma, and then paste down. It took me a little longer because I came up with the idea of cutting out the horizontal sections between the rows so that I could site through the chips and make color comparisons. It's a pretty good exercise in training yourself to spot subtle color differences. One of the things that I noticed is that a color will often look lighter than it's actual value if it's at a high chroma. That's good news for us fruit painters because nothing kills a painting quicker than overdoing the lights with the addition of too much white.