This week’s progress on the still life included (besides getting more light on the painting so I could take a better photo) throwing a shadow across the right side of the background so the background wouldn’t be so uniform, plus more work on the peach–although it still looks a lot like an orange to me. I think next time I’ll put more white on the top and less yellow. And the big news–grapes! I had no idea how I would create separate grapes out of the dark mass I roughed in at the beginning, but when I tried it, it was really fun. Here’s a case of “less is more.” Michael had me make sure I didn’t paint the dark side of each grape too solidly, but rather leave a little of the original red showing through. Then he took the back end of the brush with just a little white and made a dot for each highlight. I also added a little red and brown on the highlight side. I did this at the end of the class and I can’t wait to go back and finish them.
Ken Crocker Artist 