The Daily Painting

So, for you today, a daily painting. (That’s what I call this size of painting – 6×6″ – although I don’t actually paint one every single day.) Don’t ask me why this combination of items- I just kind of grabbed items. I wanted the shine of the ceramic mug and plate, the ultra shine of the spoon and all contrasted with the matte quality and rounded softness of the garlic. I also wanted to make sure I had three different values with an uneven balance between the three.

I’m using Wallis paper that I’ve tinted with watercolour, and Sennelier pastels – a limited palette selected from their 40 half stick collection.

You can see that the lightest value takes up the greatest proportion of space  while the darks take up the least.

Notice that the background, garlic and plate are all in the highest value. So how do I differentiate between all three items?

You can see in the final piece that the darkest darks are really very few especially compared with the large amount of lights. The background behind the garlic is yellower than the vegetable which has a cool middle value shadow to the right and it’s also this colour/value shift that helps it stand out from the background.

I’m sorry I had only two process photos of this daily painting. I got into pastelling and completely forgot about taking photos!

This pastel only has the date for its title. I’d love to hear your suggestions for a subtitle.

Check out these colours!

I had to include this photo I snapped of flowers we have in the kitchen. The colour combination was just too lovely not to share.

Hope you have a lovely day today. I plan on painting a bit (soon I’ll show you what else I’ve been up to…promise) and then, on having some fun…since it’s my special day 🙂

As always, I’d love to hear from you.  And of course, feel free to share this blog with your friends!

Until next time,

~ Gail