Painted Vase

"Painted Vase" oil on linen, 16"x20" . It's been a while since I've worked on a larger canvas and it feels pretty good, kinda liberating. I decided to skip all the amenities; wipe-out,ebauche,poster study, and just go for it. The oranges and the grapes have a brilliant color that I know was not going to last for very long, so I went for it. Artists often talk about obliterating the white of the canvas but I've heard artists such as Scott Burdick, Jeffrey Larson and Stephen Gjertson talk about how they see the values set up on their palette and use that as their guide, at least in the beginning stages. Stephen Gjertson has a wonderful half started painting of some bowls of fruit on his website under the heading "working methods" found in the "interviews" section. I've worked this way before but one of the things that I'm finding is that it is much easier to get the edges to look the way that I want them to and the white of the canvas is also forcing me to paint a bit thicker in the lights. We'll see what happens when I'm all done. Looking forward to a new year, hope you are too!