Its been a long time since I picked up my gouache paints but I had a good time tonight painting lemons in gouache. I was wanting to focus on the simple planes of lemons but that’s not exactly what happened.
I wouldn’t have thought it before I started working on it, but trying to see the simple planes of objects is really difficult for me. A lot of times I feel like I’m making stuff up. The shift from one plane to the next in most cases is very subtle and I feel like instead of making the change with a value shift I need to make it with a slightly different hue. This is especially true for the half tone area on these lemons.
Of course now when I look at the images of these lemons I can see the shift a bit more clearer. I also see how dark the underside of the lemons are in relation to their shadows. I can’t always lean on photos to help with painting but for these still life works I think I need to utilize the tech to help me visualize things like this.
