As mentioned in my previous story, I am continuing to guide you, the reader, through the process of creating this third and final painting in the triptych series of “The Big Apple”. I’ve now moved past the preliminary sketch and still life set up phase and into the actual execution of the painting itself.
First, when confronting a pure white canvas, it is necessary to know the placement of the objects to be painted. The best way to do that is to use a three-part grid. Above you can see that I’ve established the grid on the canvas itself, in addition to using a clear grid to hold and look through. I can then sketch in the objects so that they are correctly sized in relation to the other objects and fit comfortably into the overall size of the canvas. Notice that because this painting will be using a predominant number of blues and purples, I’ve made the color of the grid and the sketch itself a blue tone. This allows for easy blending when the objects are painted in.
Once I have a good idea of the composition, I can move onto painting the background. The background is super important, as it will affect how the colors of the objects will appear. It also gives me the opportunity to modify the background as I continue the painting, should I find it to be too dark or too light, too blue or too purple, etc. Finally, it also assists me to define the forms, and continue to ensure that the composition is balanced.
Next step is to then fill in the forms themselves. This is the fun part. Now I can “play” with the colors, the light and dark areas and the highlights. You can see in the image below that this is moving forward at a nice pace and that I’ve already modified the background to account for the color of the objects around it.
With my next story, I’ll present the final steps and of course, the finished work of art. By the way, the title for this painting is “The Powers Behind the Big Apple”.
Thank you for reading and stay tuned for more exciting news!
