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