Copper Plums

In this post I am concentrating on the accompanying painting. The video tells the story of its creation and I am adding the details of materials used, remembering the last post about mixing colours.

MATERIALS: The medium was Liquin with 50/50 White Spirits. I also have a container with White Spirits only. The painting surface was Frederix Oil Painting Canvas Pad. From experience this is relatively non-absorbent so I must remember not to have a lot of medium in the paint mixes. Brushes are bristle mostly No. 12 (about 12″ wide), filbert and square, one round brush, about 1/4″ diameter.

The colours follow my tried and trusted method. This is a personal choice and does not suit everyone. I think of the colours as 3 groups – 1 & 2 are essential and the 3rd is variable. For this painting the colours and relevant paints are listed as follows.

1st Group:    Black & White –  Titanium White and Ivory Black.

2nd Group:  Red, Yellow and Blue – Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre and Ultramarine Blue.

3rd Group:    Added colours – Alizarin Crimson, Chrome Green Light, Raw Umber and Cadmium Yellow.

The sketch was made with Raw Umber and White Spirits. The colour was distributed here and there to give a flavour of this colour to the painting. This is OK with Raw Umber – it mixes well with my other colours.

The background colour, on left, was a mixture of Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue with a little black. On the right, using the same ‘dirty brush’, Chrome Green was picked up and applied. This is then a mix of the previous paint on the brush, plus the green. 4 pigments in this mix and the colour is still rich. Again, because these pigments get on well together. A little white is added on the right side to contrast the dark shadow on the left. This white is dangerous if it gets into mixes at this stage – thoroughly clean the brush which applied the white.

There are no deep shadows in the painting so shadows are introduced on the kettle and fruit with Raw Umber with a very small amount of Ultramarine Blue. This colour is also used to put shadows on the cloth. This will be mostly white and a little colour in the white will be good. The other mid-tone colours are Burnt Sienna, Yellow Ochre and Alizarin Crimson for all items in the painting. This is unusual, but the copper and fruit are basically the same colour. More Crimson in the plums, less in the copper.

The handle of the kettle is a narrow precise shape which has to be painted directly onto background. Two interesting points here. Firstly, the initial sketch of the handle has been obliterated by the background. Painting onto wet paint has no room for errors. By scratching the shape into the wet paint background I create a guide line for the painting of the handle. Errors in this scratched guide line can be repaired with the brush which was used to paint the background and still has this colour. When I’m happy with the shape I apply the colour of the handle. Secondly, the background paint has Liquin in the mix. You will notice a lot of vigourous brushing in this area to make the Liquin ‘tacky’ and easier to apply the precise shape of the handle.

The highlights are the above colours with white and a little Cadmium Yellow in the plums. The application can be seen in the video so does not require explanation. One of the last touches is the blue-grey bloom on the skins of the plums. This is a mix of white and Ultramarine Blue. Its not that noticeable in the video or the photo but looks great in the flesh (or should I say on the flesh).