"Bananas #2" Oil Painting Progression Video

You can also click here to watch the video.

Bananas #2

There are all kinds of strategies artists use when executing a painting. Some work the whole painting at once. Some will work background to foreground. Some will work outward from the main subject and any variation in-between. Some like to start with tightly rendered drawings while others sculpt form with the paint as if carving a lump of clay. I personally like to exercise many approaches so I don’t become too systematic.

Other considerations come into play depending on the medium being used. For example: watercolor artists tend to work light colors/values to dark colors/values in a painting. Oil painters recommend the opposite; painting thinner dark colors to thicker light colors. Acrylic painters have more options by working as thin and transparent as watercolor or as thick as oil paint.

I used oil for this painting however; I didn’t really stick to the “dark to light” approach of oil. After a loose drawing for placement I started with my yellow (light value) subject. Then, I established the red fabric in light before moving to the bigger red fabric in shadow. I was able to work this way in oil because I worked my color and value changes side by side just like putting puzzle pieces of color together. If I tried applying a darker color directly over a lighter one I would have run into trouble.

Medium: Artists quality oil.
Painted on: Ampersand Gessobord.
Dimensions: 5x7 inches.

Amity

These two Comice Pears are of a complementary color scheme: red and green. I used Permanent Alizarin as my primary red. Permanent Alizarin is considered a cool red because it leans toward blue on the color wheel. To keep the green in harmony with the red I used a blue/green mixture of Ultramarine Blue and a small amount of Cadmium Yellow Light.

Medium: Artist quality oil.
Painted on: Ampersand Gessobord.
Dimensions: 5x5 inches.