Still Life Painting in Acylic

 Apple and Pitcher Still Life Painting

  

One Sunday afternoon this past summer I set up this still life of a apple and pitcher.  I had the purpose in mind to start do a painting of a still life.  I had been doing a few drawing of still lifes but this time I wanted to paint one instead.  When I set up most of my still lifes I use a dark back ground. I love the use of values and tones with the use of reflected light on the subjects.

Step 1 The Underpainting 

For the first step I began with a underpainting in a water down acrylic brown with a filbert brush.

I normally began with a drawing but in the case I chose not to. When I start my realistic paintings I use a filbert brush.  I just lay in the dark tones and block in the lighter values with a more watered down brown color.

Step 2 Adding Color 

Next I added color to the subject in the picture, this happened after I mixed the desired colors that were needed.  When I darken my colors I use blue or brown and sometimes I use black.  In this case, I took acylic red and darkened the tone with some blue.  When it came time for me to lighten the color I just used white.

Adding Color Continues

I repeated the same process with the blue sheet in the fact that I lighten with white and darkened it with black or brown.  I was still using the filbert brush during this stage of the painting.  However when it was time for me to paint the edges I used a flat brush and a liner brush to create a straight edge.

Finished Work

Process of Acrylic Lemon Apple and Pepper Still Life

This is the finish work of a still I set up and painted in acrylic.  It is 11x14" done on watercolor paper.  It is a lemon, jalapeno pepper, and apple.

At this stage is the underpainting in which I used a brown acrylic wash to put down the values. I was was mapping out the dark and light values.  Basically this is the blueprint for the paint to follow on. The lighter tones had more water in the mix than the dark value. 

I began my still life painting with a simple line drawing at this point.  I used a sable brush to apply the lines.  The lighter value that dominates the entire paper was applied with a sponge brush.