Celadon Vase and Clementines

Posted by Louis on Aug 12, 2015 in Recent Work | 2 comments

Based on the still life by contemporary Dutch painter Jos van Riswick.

Oil on mounted linen. Canvas prepared with two coats of acrylic “gesso,” one coat of Gamblin Oil Primer. Ground was then toned, painted with a different portrait. Canvas was reclaimed by painting over the original portrait with a mixture of Hooker Green, Raw Umber and Flake White. Liberally embedded as usual with cat hair for texture.

Palette and Supplies:

• Cadmium Red Medium
• Quinacridone Magenta
• Yellow Ochre
• Naples Yellow
• Transparent Orange
• Sap Green
• Hooker Green
• Viridian Green
• Phthalo Blue
• Burnt Umber
• Raw Umber
• Chromatic Black
• Flake White
• Galkyd Slow Dry Medium
• Gamsol Odorless Mineral Spirits

First Session

Sketch in chalk and then started immediately painting in the large areas of background color.

 Second Session

I had kept the underpainting of the vase deliberately pale so that the subsequent glazes of phthalo green and phalo blue would appear more “jewel like” with the light reflecting from the bright underpainting through transparent glazes. If I were more patient I would have continued to paint thin layers of blue and green to get the hue just right and to really take advantage of what glazing can achieve.

Painted in the clementines and then the silver goblet, wet-into-wet. I had to work quickly and do all of this in the same session because the color of each of these still life objects was reflected on the surface of the neighboring objects. This way I could work from the fresh palate with the actual first-mixed colors and not have to remix colors in subsequent sessions.

The silver goblet was fun. Painting metal objects is in interesting challenge since they don’t truly have a color of their own but tend to be made up of the relections of their surrounding objects.

Here’s the finished project. Not really a work of art, but a fun exercise.