After being away for a few days, I could see some problems with the drawing. It always amazes me how the eye can grow accustomed to errors during a long drawing session. A day or two later, and the mistakes are glaring! It’s as though the longer you try to draw something, the more your brain tries to convince you that it’s correct! It turns out that the glass was too small and too far over to the right. I really didn’t want to redraw the glass, as It took so long and looked nice. Tempting though it is, it’s never a good idea to decide not to correct an error just because you’ve put in a lot of time. I always regret it!
Next, I traced the drawing onto a piece of tracing paper, and made a transfer paper by scribbling with graphite on the reverse. I then flipped it over, taped it to my canvas, and traced over the lines to transfer the drawing to the canvas.
Now it was time to begin painting. I mixed up 9 values of burnt sienna and lead white from white to pure burnt sienna, and began to block in the values. I kept all values much lighter than they’ll be in the finished painting. The finished colors look more vibrant over a lighter base. I also keep detail to a minimum. Since I’ll be painting over this, any time spent on details would be wasted. I keep edges sharp, so as not to lose my drawing.
I decided to under-paint the green book with pure cadmium yellow. When it’s dry, I will glaze over it in green. It’s a nice way to achieve a vibrant green. The transparent green glaze will allow some of the yellow to shine through. The orange tones of the burnt sienna would have dulled down any green I painted over it. I also experimented with under-painting the yellow flourite crystal, to see if it helped me achieve a nicer yellow. We shall see! I stopped there for the day.
I finished up the next day. I’ll let this dry for about a week. The paint layer is so thin, it should be ready to paint on by then.
Linda Mann Artist 