Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Blueberries in Buffalo China Bowl

" Just Blueberries "
Oil
6"x6"
One of my favorite color schemes is yellow and blue violet and I threw in a bit of orange, too. What a challenge blueberries are. It is the type of subject that, for me, takes so much concentration. I found myself losing patience several times, having to refocus my attention to work one berry shape at a time. I left the painting to dry overnight so I could do some glazing. The paint wasn't quite dry today, it took a light hand and more patience. Whew, it's done. I do like it a lot and hope you do, too. Cheery yellows and blues for a gray November day...Veterans Day!
If there are any veterans reading my blog today, I want to thank you for your service to our country, the sacrifices you and your families have made to keep us free. Thank you and God Bless you!
SOLD

7 comments:

kim shields said...

Absolutely beautiful! What patience and concentration you have painting all those berries. I especially love the touch of yellow stems. Would you mind telling me what you mean by "glazing"?

Jennifer Bellinger said...

Thanks, Kim. A glaze is simply a transparent color brushed over a dry color. In this case, I wanted the shadow areas of the blueberries darker so I made a glaze of ultramarine blue & alizarin (transparent colors)mixed with Liquin..just a little puddle of it, this is a tiny painting. You can knock the brightness of a color (or gray it) by using a milky glaze of white or gray or ochre, etc. This works great for landscapes where the distant mountains might be too intense. It's fast, its easy and with oils if you don't like the effect just wipe it off. A scumble is taking a color (usually light) in a dry brush technique and dragging it over a dry dark area. You can unify an entire painting by glazing the whole painting. I have done this with a glaze of yellow ochre. After the glaze or scumble dries you can go back and repaint/add to areas..possiblities are endless. I find painting is a matter of adding, subtracting, rubbing, a tantrum now and then, etc. Whatever it takes. It's definately not about just putting brushstrokes down. Richard Schmid talks about modifying brushstrokes. The result looks like it wasn't fussed over...they key of a master..they make it look easy but we weren't there to watch the struggle.

ArtGirl said...

This may be one of my favorites by you. I love doing blueberries. I loves the challenge of the frosty surface! I also love your cloth so modern and bright!

Jennifer Bellinger said...

Thanks Katie Mae. It's good to hear from you, hopefully you are moved in and painting again. I will visit your blog soon!

Mary Sheehan Winn said...

Thanks for that description of glazing. I love the transparency of ultramarine, viridean & alizarin to block in my darks.
I love this painting!
Your color choices are very right on.

Mary Sheehan Winn said...

Oh, so beautiful. I LOVE IT!

Jennifer Bellinger said...

Thanks, Mary. I'm glad you mentioned using viridian. I go back and forth with that and thalo green. Don't use much of either but so necessary when you do need it. I make my blacks with various combos of thalo green, aliz and ultramarine blue. Recently I have been putting Ivory Black on my palette. I use grays to dull my colors, a basic palette of cad. yellow pale, cad. orange, cad red light, aliz., ultramarine blue, thalo blue, thalo green (for plein air work) Also, when I paint lemons cad. med. yellow, yellow ochre and more recently I put sap green out. I use Gamblins 3 Portland grays. I like getting to a color value fast. Dulling a color with a gray of the same value keeps the integrity of the color. Adding a complimentary color means adding either a darker or lighter color. Oh, when painting red objects or flowers I do use napthol red and thalo redrose (super bright pinks).