Bowl of Red Fruit
9x12"
Oil
$216
DPW $170
I have been painting many solo and trio fruits lately, and although there seems to be only three fruits in this picture, there are really six (you can see them if you look around) and one flower, plus bowl. So this is a much more complex composition for me.
The "big idea" here was to make that front fuji stem part stand out. That meant making the apple to the right very dark. How do you make red really, really dark without losing the redness? I used alizarin and transparent iron oxide red--not dark enough. If I used viridian with alizarin, I could get that really dark, but I was afraid of muddying my pure red.
I finally knew I would have to use black, but which one? Ivory or Chromatic? I decided on Chromatic because it is transparent. Transparent paints recede and opaque paints advance. Since the dark is mainly on the turning side, I thought transparent would be the best choice.
I try to find my answers in books, but sometimes I am just on my own, doing what I can with what I have.
