After laying in an imprimatura (ivory black, Old Holland raw umber, 1:1 mixture of turpentine and linseed oil) and letting it dry over night, we blocked in a simple line drawing of the shadow/light shapes with vine charcoal.
Using raw umber and a little bit of medium, we blocked in the values while staying mindful of edge quality. I was instructed to use very little medium, so the technique is almost dry-brush (one brush for paint, one brush to "erase" with). I forgot to photograph this step with my own painting, but here is one from Sophia's demo:
Our palette is set up like so:
Ivory black (Rembrandt brand- it's supposed to be the deepest, transparent black)
Raw Umber (Old Holland- it's much warmer than other brands)
Cobalt blue (Old Holland)
Vermillion
Yellow Ochre (I used Old Holland yellow brown since it was on the supply list)
Lead White
We mixed up a value scale of generic "pear" colors and blocked in the general value/temperature relationships on the pear. At this stage, the focus is on correct value rather than accurate color. White is kept out of the mixtures at this stage and the highest value created without white serves as the general light mass. For every value on our palette, we have to use a different brush to avoid muddying up our paints.
The next day, we oil in the dry painting and mix up another value scale with colors specific to our pear. This time, we mix three additional values using white. We paint on top of the dry paint, with our more accurate color mixtures, starting first with the background (correcting the contour), shadow shape, and light shape. Over the next couple days, we continue correcting the drawing and matching the value, temperature, and color, and building up to the lightest light.
Beautiful Irin!
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