Corn - Continued

I got a chance to paint for 2 hours today. I finished the background on my carnation painting (I think) and got to paint a bit more on the corn painting. This is a photo at the end of session 2. At this point, I'm working from photos, which is so much easier as nothing rots. I just can't find enough time to paint every day to set up a still life and make it useful.

I knew that things would have to get darker in this session as I need to lay the darkest layer down and then paint up in value from there. I spent a lot of time on refining the shape of the colander. I hope I got it right. Ovals, especially angled ovals, are very hard to master, plus I don't have a steady hand and the eye can fool you.

I also did some pretty dramatic underpaintings based on previous experience. For example, I know that I can get a good carmel colored wood if I underpaint it cadmium orange and then glaze it with purple. Painting it any other way just never looks rich enough. Granted this is very weathered wood so maybe it's not the same thing as a highly polished table. We'll see. I can certainly undo anything I don't like.

One problem is that you really have to paint the colander "wet on wet" in order to get the edges right. By the time I get back to this everything will be dry, so I will have to repaint alot. I complain, but the reality is, multiple painting layers make it so much richer. I don't know if there is a true rule on this, but I believe it takes 3 layers of paint (or sessions of wet on dry painting-that is-letting the paint dry between layers) to get something to look 3-D with depth. Try it, it's something I tell my students and it almost always works.