Process of Still Life Painting Pear and Apple

Last week I started on another still life painting.  I was inspired on a new technique to shift in a different direction in the way I paint.  I wanted to expose more of my brush strokes in my painting.  I am still learning how to paint more in a impressionistic style with  the use of broken color.  I took an old soft pastel painting I did and changed the back ground color.to more of an aqua blue. I did not use a palette knife, instead I only used a flat brush and a liner brush for details.

In the first stage I diluted brown wash of acrylic to tone the paper.  The paper is a Canson mixed media.  I used a flat brush to produce the line drawing of the forms.  I also establish the shadow maps for the dark values to be blocked in later.

In stage two I continued to use a flat brush however a had more brown paint than water in the mixed to get a darker value for the shadow zones.  Also I establish the highlight zones by allowing the lightest value to be left exposed.  At this stage not only a dark value is blocked in but also a middle value is blocked.

In stage three I premixed my paint into 4 groups blues, reds, greens, and light values of brown. I always use a palette knife to mixed my color out.  I'am using glass to mix my colors on and lay out. 

Stage four I started to add color to the background using the blue values I had premixed earlier.

Finally I added more color the values of green red and browns. 

 "Pair & Apple © DWeaver Art are completed done in acrylic 6 x 6 on mixed media Canson paper.

How to make a Seascape Painting

This is considered a seascape according to the type of painting it is.  However, this is actually a lake painting. It is a painting of a lake in North Alabama called "Cedar Lake".  I was inspired to paint this painting from a photo sent by email to me from a friend who fish on this lake.  It is a very beautiful place.  As you can see it was taken at sunset.  I altered the painting from the original photo reference to have a reflection of sunlight that is more exaggerated.  I wanted to capture the ripples of the waves in the lake and used the sunlight as a point of emphasis or focal point in the composition.  Also it is a painting in an abstract color scheme from reality.

I started with a value sketch from my sketch journal.  I only used 5 values of gray to accomplish the sketch. I used a mechanical no.2 pencil in graphite.

Next, I toned the paper with a brown or burnt sienna color.  I diluted color or paint with water to achieve a lighter value and used less water in the color to get darker values. I used a large flat brush to tone the surface evenly all over to get the lightest value.  Then I used a smaller flat to draw and block in the darker values.

I used the color green blue yellow and white to premix the colors.  I use a glass palette because it cleans better when I finish painting sessions.  I use a rounded end metal palette knife to mix the hues or original colors. I add blue to darken the greens and I use white to tint or lighten the colors.

Here is the finished painting very small in size 4x4 done in acrylic of Cedar Lake