Cotton and red chillies Oil 15X30

Good morning, are you ready for a lesson in oil painting? This is for you who paint traditionally.  

Cotton and red chillies Oil 15X30

 This painting in oil on canvas was painted in 1965 from a still life setup.  It was one of my first.  I was under an art teacher who painted very detailed work and a lot of blending, and this began the love I have for painting.  I think it took me a month, going every week to her house for a class.

I was thankful and relieved the day she said, "Sign your name, it is finished."

I took lessons from her for five years and I learned how to paint traditionally. I have painted a many cotton bulbs, thistles and white ceramic pots since, not only in oils but in watercolor. I've also painted a lot of red chillies in baskets, ristras and you name it. Once you learn the technique, then it is always the same.

Petals Tips: This is an oil painting with lots of medium.  I painted it very thin, and layered many, many coats of paint. It looks awfully gray to me today.  I would add dirty blue and lavender into the shadows of the white cotton and the  white pot.

Oils are totally different than watercolors. Oils you start with the darks, then add lighter colors, until you have a white highlight. I started the cotton bulbs with a dark gray (now I would go dark grayish-blue), then I added white and started blending with a large soft brush.  I lightly brushed over it until I sank the white down into the grey.  Then I added more white and continued the same process.  The paints need to blend without losing the whites or the darks.  I could improve on that cotton today. 

On the thistles, I don't think I could improve them unless I  added more raw sienna.  Start with burnt umber under painting, half the size of what you see there. (I would probably make up a rich goop with alizaran crimson, ultramarine and cad yellow.  Start from the outside of the dark, painting with raw sienna, with a # 6 brush. Use lots of medium and make strokes from the middle of the thistle to the outside edge beyond the dark circle. That's why you have to start with a small dark circle, the thistles need to be open, airy on the ends and I warn you, this thistle will grow larger in diameter. With yellow ocher start closer to the center and continue the strokes from inside the ball outward.  Then add white to your yellow ocher and continue to make strokes from the center. These last strokes will be coming from the center and will only be out a short distance from the center. This gives the feeling of the puffiness to the thistle, it is building in dimension.  It is starting to look full and thick.

The red chillies are painted dark red.  Add burnt sienna or black to Alizaran Crimson Paint in the shape of the chilli, then start adding red. Today, I would add ultramarine into some of the red chillies, makings them much more interesting. That's what happens over the years, you get bolder and color does not scare you, if you know how to control it.

I am looking at this painting, and since I painted it over forty years ago, I think the teacher had me use a lot of burnt umber in the shadows. I hardly ever use burnt umber today. It is too brown, and I want color. You can get dark colors. without using black or brown. That will be for another lesson.

This will give you a good start.  I pray your hands will be full of grace..

Meanderings~~~~ Things I did years ago still add to who I am today. Nothing is lost, not even the mistakes and bad choices. This painting was a beginning of my painting days and I have painted almost everyday since. When I fell in love with painting, I have not looked to anything else. I've done things that added to it, like changing mediums, styles; oils to watercolors, traditional to impressionistic, canvas to furniture and tee shirts, but there has always been with a brush or palette knife in my hand.

I didn't believe I was an artist for a long time, I thought artists were different; it was a high attainment and I surely didn't consider that I would ever be good enough to claim myself as an artist. But I painted and continued to paint and paint, until one day, I said, "I guess I am an artist. I don't feel like one, but that's all I do and all I want to do. I just want to create. I guess I will call myself an artist."

I look back today and know I was born an artist, I wasn't trained, encouraged or supported as a young person, but one day, I had the opportunity and I grabbed it. It has caused me to see beauty, grow as a person, and question myself a thousand times in a thousand ways.  It is the vehicle the Lord has used to know myself.  Have a great day, and think on good things.