I had forgotten to bring the master copy of the previous day so I continued to work on my still life painting. The flowers had drooped more but that was fine they actually had a clear since of light and shadow and it was easier to see the shapes. Another thing that helped tremendously was turning off the warm light cast over my canvas. I should have known this, I have made the same mistake many times before, heck I even built a whole studio around the idea of good constant same temperature light. Next time I will bring my own light, and a couple bulbs, one 5000k and the other regular tungsten.
After a critique of our work and some, very bad for you, pastries. The instructor said I should start a new painting, “Something really different”. So, what could be more different than a darker flower with a new holder in completely different light, all while painting in the dark. After making the first mistake with the light I didn’t want to light my canvas with the wrong light again, so I painted in the dark. I figured if Rembrandt could paint the most amazing paintings ever, by candle light, I could deal with this.
This painting went well, I stuck with the wipe out process and quickly established composition and value. Then I moved right into the darkest dark areas, then the lightest areas. Actually it didn’t take long at all for the painting to shape up enough for me to work into the details and refinements. I really think I may continue to paint like this all the time. Which is really great because that means I never need to tone canvases again, I can just paint directly on the white, imagine that!
