Charles Reid Workshop, Day 2
Day 2 still life was another arrangement of flowers in a silver pitcher with veggies. Charles began his contour drawing and he first drew a large shapes of all the flowers (see how I outlined the
shape in pink).
He shortened the pitcher because as he put it, "I don't want to paint all that shiney stuff- too many hard edges". He then went back in and drew the flower shapes and other objects remembering to connect each object with cast shadows when applicable. He said, "When drawing, invision what you want. You don't want symmetry."
Before starting to paint, he refreshed his palette with fresh paint. He paints much like an oil painter with pure pigment and often times painting the darks first. He commented on the paper he was using- it was very ruff and absorbant. He did not recommend it. He started painting negatively around the white daisy putting in multiple colors- orange, carmine, peacock, cobalt violet and a green mix of cerulean and lemon (see my colored pen sketch on top of the drawing)
For the purple flowers, he used a combo of peacock and Carmine (or Aliz. Crimson) painting around the white flower. Charles said, "Notice how much paint I use". If its too cool (peacock), add some warm (raw sienna). He used pure yellow straight out of the tube for the small yellow daisys then went into the stems immediately. He doesn't clean his brush too often, will get too much water.
For the orange tulip, he went in wet in wet starting with Cad Orange then adding raw sienna. He usually changes color mid way through painting an object ( whether to warm up a too cool object or visa versa, or to add value change).
The tomato was Cad Red and green with raw sienna. He says to look for an escape route by painting the cast shadow while the object is wet in order to bleed some of the local color into the shadow.
He said not to paint over your painting. If you must go back in, do it with pure pigment, not grey.
To bleed out some of the flowers, he splattered with tinted water then swooshed it around with his brush.
Some points he was making:
- Don't over mix
- Don't worry about losing boundries
-Don't always clean your brush
-If you are in the same value range- you will be okay.
-Remember to add color change.
- Tie in objects-ie: the top of the mushroom ties in with pot (see sketch right)
- Add cast shadow while object is wet- don't add later
When painting the base of the bird, he applied blue on the left and green on the right with the tip of his brush, then layed down his brush to add water to connect the two colors and add a lighter value.
For the onion, he used Ultramarine Blue and Carmine painted in the same way as the base of the bird.
Finished painting by Charles Reid. Day 2 Still life
I'm only adding my feeble attempt to paint a still life because I wanted to share with you Charles' critique on this. The day we did critiques, Charles asked us to say what we liked about our painting and what we didn't like. I can't remember what I said that I liked, but I did say that I didn't like that "mess" up at the top (that is when I stopped painting on it). And, guess what he said, he said that he likes that "mess on top". He also said that the pitcher was good, the area around the daisy and bottom objects were good. I commented that it wasn't finished and he said that was no excuse. He was right. I had time to finish it, but I chose not to because I thought I had ruined it. Go figure.
