Our first painting will be a black and white still-life painting. Working from a simple collection of volumetric forms, we will concentrate on: looking, composition, accuracy of forms, accuracy of proportions, edge quality, and value range. Your finished painting will look similar to this:
Setting up the easel:
Our first challenge is to decide on a composition for the painting. Consider your point of view and decide whether to do a vertical/portrait (with the short side on top) or horizontal/landscape (with the long side on top) format. A good composition usually contains a dynamic relationship between the positive shapes (the objects/subjects you're painting) and the negative shapes (the space around those objects/subjects.) Another good rule of thumb is to have forms that go off at least 3 sides of the canvas. These forms may include a combination of positive shapes and active negative shapes like shadows, edges, or other forms. A few quick thumbnail sketches in your sketchbook can be a good way to try out some different options before beginning to paint. You may also make and use a viewfinder to help determine the most effective composition.
Here's a good link that describes making and using a viewfinder:
http://teresabernardart.com/making-and-using-a-viewfinder-to-compose-better-paintings/
Once you have determined your format and figured out a compelling composition based on your point of view, it's time to get painting. Mix a light grey on your palette with plenty of Liquin. You want a paint that has a somewhat fluid consistency so that your brush moves smoothly across the canvas. Staying with a lighter value of grey will make it easier if you have to "erase" or cover anything up as you dial in the accuracy of your painting. If you go too dark, you'll be fighting to cover up your initial marks.
Blocking-in:
As you begin to establish the major forms of the painting, a few things to keep in mind:
• at this stage, nothing is precious. Work quickly and be willing to shift and adjust things. Much better to do this now, instead of 10 hours into a painting.
• start with an object and build from there. Once you have the first object blocked in, use comparative measurements, sighting, and angling techniques to map out the other objects. Look for places where edges intersect, how/where object align with each other, and use both positive shapes and negative shapes to dial in placement.
• your focus should be on looking. Spend a lot of time looking at the still-life and noting the relationship between objects to recreate those same relationships in your painting.
• The top of the cylinder as it's tipped into space is known as an ellipse. It should follow a smooth arc around each side from front to back and not be pointy like a football. That will make for a sad cylinder:
Here's a good sense of what your painting should look like after the first work session:
It's rough, and has a ways to go, but the relationships between forms are established, shapes are fairly accurate and we're beginning to get a sense of how the forms exist volumetrically in space and are starting to establish areas of light and dark. As you move into the next step of building up and refining light and shadow (value) be sure the continue to be mindful of the accuracy of forms and proportions. Adjust if needed.
Value
Once the basic architecture of the painting is established, we can move on to focusing on value: the range of lights and darks in a painting.
A useful tool in thinking about and looking for value is a value scale. This is a 10 step gradation from white to black:
The value scale allows you to have a comparative reference when looking at the still-life and also gives us a shared reference point when describing light and shadow. We can describe an area of a painting as consisting of middle values (or light, or dark) and we know what that means in relationship to the value scale. Similarly, we might say that an area of a painting isn't quite right and that it needs to be darker by a "step" (a difference of 1 gradation) of the value scale, or that it may need to be shifted two steps lighter. This reference point and shared language helps to adjust parts of your painting to achieve a greater degree of realism and accuracy.
The value scale is essentially a way to describe light and shadow. To create a painting with depth and realism, we need to focus on looking closely at the still-life in order to observe the ways in which the forms are being described by light. Here are types of light to look for:
Highlight: where the light hits the object most directly; this will be the brightest area of the object.
Transitional values: as the light moves around the form and less light travels around the form, values shift darker
Core of the shadow: this is where the least amount of light is reaching as it moves around the form
Reflected light: because of diffusion, light moves around the object and reflects off of surfaces around the object and bounces light back onto the object. Reflected light can be a powerful tool in getting a realistic painting.
Cast shadow: this is the shadow formed by the object blocking light from reaching the surface directly opposite of the light source.
While you should be on the lookout for all of these kinds of light, you should note that all 5 may not always appear in every object depending on it's placement in relationship to other objects, the light source, the geometry of the object, and your point of view.
Two things to keep in mind:
• the innate value/color of an object will affect how broad of a range of value it has. For instance, we're painting white objects against a white background. We won't have any pure blacks; instead most of our values will fall in the lighter half of the value scale. Our darkest darks will likely fall just below the middle of the value scale. Taking a few moments to note where the lightest and darkest areas of the still-life are (and where they fall on the value scale) can help orient you to mixing the appropriate values for your painting.
• value is relative. In other words, how dark or light a value reads is dependent on the values next to it. In the example below, one square appears to be darker than the other:
In fact they're the same value; each square appears to be darker or lighter based on the value next to it. So sometimes, the way to get the value that you need is by adjusting the adjacent value.
Building value:
Subtle blending with stippling: