Unit II, Lesson 10--30 in 30 Challenge Day Ten, Apple Study #3

"Apple Study #3" by Monique Chartier; 6" x 6" oil on stretched linen.

Today I painted a back-lit Red Delicious.

Step One:  Set up the still life.

Step Two:  Tone the canvas.  I toned the canvas with Viridian Green (green is the compliment of the red in the apple.)

Step Three:  Create a value drawing.

Step Four:  Draw the subject on the canvas.  I just did a quick sketch to get the proportions correct.

Quick drawing to get the proportions.  It looks like a cupcake!  

Step Five:  Block in the subject.

Block in stage.

Step Six:  Refine and add detail as necessary.

Starting to blend and refine.

Adding details and continuing to blend.

More detail, including stem. 

Step Seven:  Sign it.

Done!

Day Ten of the 30 in 30 is in the books and on the blog!  I'm now officially one-third of the way through.  You can see today's post on Leslie Saeta's blog here.  20 little fruit paintings left to create.  Here's what's left in my "Grab-Bag of Lessons":

Grab-bag of Lessons

• 7 Oranges
• 7 Apples
• 6 Pears 

You can access all of the lessons in this unit from the Index of Lessons page here.

As always, please subscribe to follow along or join in.  I'd love to meet you--please introduce yourself in the comments.  Also, your feedback is most appreciated.  Leave your questions, comments, and hate mail below.  (I won't post the hate mail, ha!)  Thanks for stopping by.  Monique

Unit II, Lesson 9--30 in 30 Challenge. Day Nine, Apple Study #2

Apple Study #2 by Monique Chartier, 6" x 6" oil on stretched linen.

A little, round organic Golden Delicious.  And, I'm caught up!

Step One:  Set up the still life.

Still life set up.

Step Two:  Tone the canvas.  I toned the canvas with Cadmium Yellow Light.

Step Three:  Create a value drawing.

Step Four:  Draw the subject on the canvas.

Step Five:  Block in the subject.

Blocking in the background.

All blocked in.

Step Six:  Refine and add detail as necessary.

Starting to blend and refine.

More definition.

Step Seven:  Sign it.

Done!

Day Nine of the 30 in 30 is in the books and on the blog!  You can see it on Leslie Saeta's blog here.  21 little fruit paintings left to create.  Here's what's left in my "Grab-Bag of Lessons":

Grab-bag of Lessons

• 7 Oranges
• 8 Apples
• 6 Pears 

You can access all of the lessons in this unit from the Index of Lessons page here.

As always, please subscribe to follow along or join in.  I'd love to meet you--please introduce yourself in the comments.  Also, your feedback is most appreciated.  Leave your questions, comments, and hate mail below.  (I won't post the hate mail, ha!)  Thanks for stopping by.  Monique

Unit II, Lesson 8--30 in 30 Challenge. Day Eight, Pear Study #4

"Pear Study #4" by Monique Chartier.  6" x 6" oil on stretched linen.

This is a Red D'Angou pear, but it looks completely different than the one I painted here.  This pear looked almost bronze to me.  I decided to paint the background a gunmetal grey (Transparent Oxide Red + Ultramarine Blue + Titanium Zinc White to tint) to create a metallic look to the whole painting.

Step One:  Set up the still life.  Not a good picture, and the pear's colors do not really shine through, but it gives a bit of the idea of the light and shadow pattern.

Still life set up

Step Two:  Tone the canvas.  As you can tell, I had too much fun with this.  

Toned canvas

Step Three:  Create a value drawing.

Step Four:  Draw the subject on the canvas.  To keep the colors very clean (to keep the bronze look), I only drew the proportions.  I handled the shadow areas in the next step.

Pear's proportions

Step Five:  Block in the subject.

Block in.

Step Six:  Refine and add detail as necessary.

Smoother with more detail.

Step Seven:  Sign it.

Done!

Day eight of the 30 in 30 is in the books and on the blog!  You can see it on Leslie Saeta's blog here.  22 little fruit paintings left to create.  Here's what's left in my "Grab-Bag of Lessons":

Grab-bag of Lessons

• 7 Oranges
• 9 Apples
• 6 Pears 

You can access all of the lessons in this unit from the Index of Lessons page here.

As always, please subscribe to follow along or join in.  I'd love to meet you--please introduce yourself in the comments.  Also, your feedback is most appreciated.  Leave your questions, comments, and hate mail below.  (I won't post the hate mail, ha!)  Thanks for stopping by.  Monique

Unit II, Lesson 7--30 in 30 Challenge. Day Seven, Orange Study #3

"Orange Study #3" by Monique Chartier.  6" x 6" oil on stretched linen. 

Just one little orange today.  Hopefully I can catch up soon!

Step One:  Set up the still life.

Step Two:  Tone the canvas.  

Step Three:  Create a value drawing.

Step Four:  Draw the subject on the canvas.

Drawing.

Step Five:  Block in the subject.

Block in.

Some detail.

Step Six:  Refine and add detail as necessary.  You'll see I had to fix the shape of the orange in this stage.

More details.

Step Seven:  Sign it.

Done! 

Day Seven of the 30 in 30 is in the books and on the blog!  You can see it on Leslie Saeta's blog here.  23 little fruit paintings left to create.  Here's what's left in my "Grab-Bag of Lessons":

Grab-bag of Lessons

• 7 Oranges
• 9 Apples
• 7 Pears 

You can access all of the lessons in this unit from the Index of Lessons page here.

As always, please subscribe to follow along or join in.  I'd love to meet you--please introduce yourself in the comments.  Also, your feedback is most appreciated.  Leave your questions, comments, and hate mail below.  (I won't post the hate mail, ha!)  Thanks for stopping by.  Monique

Unit II, Lesson 6--30 in 30 Challenge. Day Six, Pear Study #3

"Pear Study #3" by Monique Chartier; 6" x 6" oil on stretched linen.

Step One:  Set up the still life.  Today I used back-lighting on the subject.  I aimed the little spotlight up and over the pear from the top and behind it.  

Step Two:  Tone the canvas.  I used Transparent Oxide Red and wiped a lot off with a turpentine-soaked paper towel.

Toned with Transparent Oxide Red + turpentine.

Step Three:  Create a value drawing.

Step Four:  Draw the subject on the canvas.

Very rudimentary drawing to get down proportions and major shadow areas.

Step Five:  Block in the subject.

Darkest shadow area block-in.  It looks like a narwhal!

Block-in complete.

Step Six:  Refine and add detail as necessary.

Taking form!

Step Seven:  Sign it.

Done!

Day Six of the 30 in 30 is in the books and on the blog!  You can see it on Leslie Saeta's blog here.  24 little fruit paintings left to create.  Here's what's left in my "Grab-Bag of Lessons":

Grab-bag of Lessons

• 8 Oranges
• 9 Apples
• 7 Pears 

You can access all of the lessons in this unit from the Index of Lessons page here.

As always, please subscribe to follow along or join in.  I'd love to meet you--please introduce yourself in the comments.  Also, your feedback is most appreciated.  Leave your questions, comments, and hate mail below.  (I won't post the hate mail, ha!)  Thanks for stopping by.  Monique

Unit II, Lesson 5--30 in 30 Challenge. Day Five, Apple Study #1

"Apple Study #1" by Monique Chartier, 6" x 6" oil on linen

I've been sick, so I'm a bit behind.  Also (or consequently?), this is not my best work.  So, I'll just consider it a "sketch."  What is important is that I got in the studio and painted!

Step One:  Set up the still life.

Step Two:  Tone the canvas.

Step Three:  Create a value drawing.

Step Four:  Draw the subject on the canvas.

Step Five:  Block in the subject.

Block in.

Step Six:  Refine and add detail as necessary.

Some details.

Step Seven:  Sign it.

Done!

Day Five of the 30 in 30 is in the books and on the blog!  You can see it on Leslie Saeta's blog here.  25 little fruit paintings left to create.  Here's what's left in my "Grab-Bag of Lessons":

Grab-bag of Lessons

• 8 Oranges
• 9 Apples
• 8 Pears 

You can access all of the lessons in this unit from the Index of Lessons page here.

As always, please subscribe to follow along or join in.  I'd love to meet you--please introduce yourself in the comments.  Also, your feedback is most appreciated.  Leave your questions, comments, and hate mail below.  (I won't post the hate mail, ha!)  Thanks for stopping by.  Monique

Unit II, Lesson 4--30 in 30 Challenge. Day Four, Pear Study #2

"Pear Study #2" by Monique Chartier.  6" x 6" oil on linen.

Today I chose to paint a Red D'Angou pear.  This one was difficult for me.  It is red with a yellow side, and I struggled with hue versus value, I think.  It took me awhile, but I think I got it.

Step One:  Set up the still life.  Now that I think about it, this little guy gave me trouble before I even started.  Somewhere along the way, its stem fell off.  To give myself some sort of reference, I picked the stem off of the green pear I painted yesterday and just perched it on top.  Ha ha!

Step Two:  Tone the canvas.  This was lots of fun.  I used Alizarin Permanent + Ultramarine Blue for the top, Viridian Green for the middle, and Cadmium Yellow Light for the bottom.  

Step Three:  Create a value drawing.

Step Four:  Draw the subject on the canvas.  I used Transparent Oxide Red thinned with turpentine to draw on the canvas.  Then I spilled the turpentine all over my palette and paints.  Some days . . . .

Step Five:  Block in the subject.

Starting the block-in with the darkest dark.

Blocking in the rest of the canvas.

Step Six:  Refine and add detail as necessary.  This part took the longest.  The values and hues were giving me trouble, and you'll see there's a dent on the side of the pear that seemed interesting at first, but just proved challenging to render realistically.  I learned a lot with this one (like, don't choose to paint a dented red and yellow pear that lost its stem).

Almost finished adding detail.

Step Seven:  Sign it.  I signed it on my lower left because the painting is weighted toward the right.

Finished!

Day Four of the 30 in 30 is in the books and on the blog!  You can see it on Leslie Saeta's blog here.  26 little fruit paintings left to create.  Here's what's left in my "Grab-Bag of Lessons":

Grab-bag of Lessons

• 8 Oranges
• 10 Apples
• 8 Pears 

You can access all of the lessons in this unit from the Index of Lessons page here.

As always, please subscribe to follow along or join in.  I'd love to meet you--please introduce yourself in the comments.  Also, your feedback is most appreciated.  Leave your questions, comments, and hate mail below.  (I won't post the hate mail, ha!)  Thanks for stopping by.  Monique

Unit II, Lesson 3--30 in 30 Challenge. Day Three, Pear Study #1

"Pear Study #1" by Monique Chartier.  6" x 6" oil on linen.

Today I chose to paint one little, lonely pear.

Step One:  Set up the still life.

Single pear still life set-up.

 You can see here why it is so important and helpful to paint from life.  The photograph simply does not convey what I could see from life.

Step Two:  Tone the canvas.

6" x 6" stretched oil-primed linen canvas primed with Cadmium Red Deep thinned with turpentine.

I primed my canvas with Cadmium Red Deep because red is complimentary to the pear's green color.  Also, you can't tell from the photograph of the set-up, but the pear was mostly light yellow-green with little swathes of red, which looked a lot like Cadmium Red Deep to me.  I thought that if some poked through, it would add to the painting.  (And, I'm still out of Alizarin Permanent.)

Step Three:  Create a value drawing.

Step Four:  Draw the subject on the canvas.

Still life drawing with Transparent Red Oxide thinned with turpentine.

Step Five:  Block in the subject.

The ugly stage.  But I'm not so bothered.  Really, I'm not . . . . 

I chose to use Viridian Green and Cadmium Red as my background color, tinted up in value as necessary.  For the very deep part of the shadow, I added Ultramarine Blue.

Step Six:  Refine and add detail as necessary.

And, the fun part!  I love watching it take form.

Step Seven:  Sign it.

Finishing touch.

From start to finish, this took about three hours.  But, that included making and eating dinner during that three hours.  It felt like it went pretty quickly when I was actually painting.  

Day Three of the 30 in 30 is in the books and on the blog!  You can see it, and many fantastic works, on Leslie Saeta's blog here.  27 little fruit paintings left to create.  Here's what's left in my "Grab-Bag of Lessons":

Grab-bag of Lessons

• 8 Oranges
• 10 Apples
• 9 Pears 

You can access all of the lessons in this unit from the Index of Lessons page here.

As always, please subscribe to follow along or join in.  I'd love to meet you--please introduce yourself in the comments.  Also, your feedback is most appreciated.  Leave your questions, comments, and hate mail below.  (I won't post the hate mail, ha!)  Thanks for stopping by.  Monique