The last painting, Fall, in The Seasons series has now begun and I hope to complete it by well… fall. The first three paintings have been shipped to the clients for safekeeping and they insist that they’re not going to look at them until they receive this last panel. We’ll see if they can hold out!
My apologies for the blurred photo. I didn’t see it was out of focus until after I’d applied the initial paint skin tint. If you study the following photo, you can see where I added more details in the drawing stage. The mouse which I’d eliminated in the Spring panel, found its way back here.
The initial tinting begins…
The first layer on top of the oil primed surface is always to lock down the graphite drawing, to initialize a layer that is most ready to receive the top layers (it’s also the layer that takes longest to dry), and to set the color tone for the subsequent layers. As you can see, I want this painting to have a slight purple tint. Since one of the main characters in this painting is the grapes, I thought it an appropriate undertone.
Yes, I used a fine Sharpie pen to delineate some of the forms after the initial skin of paint was applied.
The second layer starts to establish more of the local color— green leaves start to become green, blue mushrooms a pale blue, etc. That said, some of these colors won’t stay as is; they’re only the underpainting colors which may or may not peek through the final layers. The snake is a DeKay’s brownsnake which will end up more gray— we have a lot of them here in PA. A brighter deeper purple and the dusty blush colors destined for the grapes will be all the richer for the burnt reddish-orange underpainting color.
Tiny details are emerging, like the small fairy mushrooms in the lower center, the wasps, worms, snails, and such. These make it a kind of scavenger hunt that’s rewarding when one takes the time to notice…
I can now see that the grapes have benefited from the reddish underpainting, although they will be eventually cooled with a blue glaze to show the cuticle or the bloom of the fruit. The snake is starting to appear as a character now, as are the Bluet mushrooms in the lower left. More shadows and details added are starting to bring more of the elements into focus.