Making Happy Art

With a piece this complicated, I like to approach it the way one would a jigsaw puzzle – you don’t just start; you first find the edge pieces and separate them and build a framework from which to begin. So that’s how I’ll do this, using a rough drawing and an underpainting in raw umber only. That way I can establish the shapes and values without confusing myself with color just yet.

I think I actually used this very small brush for the entire painting. If you’re wondering, it’s a 5/0 synthetic sable brush.

I’m working on an Aquabord panel from Ampersand, but sometimes I prefer Gessobord. The difference to me is that with the Aquabord, my paint layers absorb more readily, especially the lower layers, meaning I have less texture in my overall piece, which I prefer.

I use both water and matte medium to thin and spread the paint at this stage. I also go back in with a darker mix of raw umber and payne’s gray in the darkest areas and bring out the white highlights, too.

As I begin to add the color, I work in very thin glazes, using straight matte medium most of the time, not water, because I want to build up a rich level of transparency, so the light moves through the layers of paint. This process requires quite a bit of patience, but it is, to me, able to create a far more accurate and pleasing result than I can get with direct painting in acrylics. 

If I remember correctly, the only colors I used in glazing the strawberries were napathol red, cadmium yellow, cadmium orange and ultramarine blue. Purer colors strategically layered over one another to create optical colors helps to create the luminosity I’m looking for. I also don’t want to dull the colors with white, so I’m trying to make the white of the background work for me, and get color intensity by lots of layers.

The key here is to not get lazy. Work back and forth to keep refining details and shapes and colors in relationship to one another. Some artists can work more systematically, like in a grid. While I’ve used a grid on occasion, I really find that I need to be looking at the entire piece, jumping around constantly, to get it to all work together.

My berries are finished at this point. I’ve gone in a refined the highlights, added lots of glazes and made sure my seeds are more convincing.

Stems are done and so is the piece! It was a great exercise in proving to myself that even a complex subject can become possible when you have patience and follow a good process. Thanks for looking!