Darlin' Clementines

I painted this demo of clementines in a glass compote for a local art league in Mineola, Tx. I began with the clementines using new gamboge, quin gold and a bit of quin burnt orange. I "stippled" areas, skipping around and leaving a lot of light holes. I wanted this to be a first layer of texture on the skin of the citrus. also, the wedges of citrus was painted loosely, leaving areas of white to allude to veining.

I then began layering these colors with permanent alizarin, quin rose and tinted some of the warm mixtures with cool greens and blues to add depth. I actually painted three paintings in order to further the demo for the audience (you can tell because some of these clementines are darker than the next paintings). At some point I will actually finish the other two! A few orange reflections were added to the stem and base of the compote.

I began to add shadows in the white table runner, tinted the glass a turquoise and then mixed winsor green, ultramarine blue and permanent alizarin to make a warm brown for the table. The background was done by using various wet and dry mixutures of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna (my favorite grays) and adding undersea green, a wonderful granulating color. At first I didn't like the mottled look of the blooming that happened in the background.

But after letting it sit for a while, I began to really like the texture of the background. I improved it by adding another glazing of ultramarine blue and undersea green, using the granulating properties to my advantage. Lace holes are created by merely painting the holes; brown where the fabric rests on the table and blues/lavanders where the fabric folds back on itself.