Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Pile o' Matoes


sold. (6x6in.)

I did 2 tomato paintings before this that were super rusty and...basically not post-worthy. The thing I was having trouble with was getting the dark reds dark enough. So I fussed and fussed and killed the poor things. My solution, finally, was to pick an average red from the tomatoes (a middle value that I saw, which turned out to be a red mixed with some blue and yellow), paint the whole tomato area with that, and then put the lighter and darker reds on top of that first color. I have seen, over and over, in myself and my students, trouble getting reds and yellows and oranges dark enough. In general. This is especially prevalent when the value changes are subtle, as in tomatoes and egg yolks.

5 comments:

Ross Lynem said...

I love your work. Very lively.

Unknown said...

Just a note to say I am so enjoying these little works of yours. So much fun.

D. MEYER said...

Matores, matores and more matores..love them!!

Caroline Greene said...

It's useful reading about how you approach your paintings and I had no idea the type of lighting makes such a difference. I love the purity of colours in this.

Unknown said...

Thank you for sharing what you learned about how to resolve getting the darks dark enough with reds and yellows. Much appreciated. Reading your book now along with the blog posts is a big plus!!