Painting Challenge Day 3

Day 3 setup

This was my setup for day 3, it burned out in the photo but that is a lemon slice hanging over the teacup. You can see a piece of scotch tape between the cup and the lemon, that was to keep the lemon from spinning. The silver carafe is from the The Willard Hotel, Washington, DC. It's not dated but has some years on it. There are great reflections in both the carafe and the cup and that was the focus of the painting.

Morning break

I took an early break in the morning when the canvas was covered. I like the abstract feel of this block in. You can see that the drawing of the carafe and the cup are not symmetrical here. The handles are off as well, that's enough saying what's wrong.

Midday break

Starting to get some of the great reflections in here. You can start to see how the colors of the table and background are showing up in the colors of the silver and blue. The lemon slice is thickly painted here because the background red and purple kept bleeding through. I should have wiped off the area before painting the lemon. Thick paint can be laid on dark wet paint and work but it makes things more difficult.

Late afternoon break

Great fun painting the silver carafe, correcting the drawing issues, some of the highlights are placed but not finished. More reflected light has been worked into the teacup. The lemon slice has even more paint at this point, should have scraped it off so I could bring it to conclusion with the rest of the painting.

End of day 3
"Lemon Aided", Steven J Parrish, Oil on Linen, 8"x10"

Worked over the entire painting to pull it together. Warmed up the colors and refined all the drawing. Worked on the background and shadows. The yarn and lemon were the last things finished since they moved in and out of the volume of space surrounding the other objects. This was a fun day of painting, I wanted to use very expressive brushwork and let the painting pull together from about 5 feet away. Of course all my fellow painters will enjoy the painting from 2" away as well. Will have to evaluate the lemon slice at some point to see if it can be improved. Once again, clean up, critique, wine and prepare for the next day.