Ranier and Amber - completed composition for Chicagoland workshop

Ranier and Amber

22"x15" Transparent Watercolor

Well, the final painting is completed for the Oak Park workshop and I'll be shipping it to the Chicago area this weekend, along with all my supplies. I just don't trust the airlines to get it there! As a final pass, I decided to glaze the glass in front of the cherries to separate their intensity from the ones that spill above the rim of the crystal bowl. I darkened reflections in the bowl to give that leaded glass the feeling of weight. I chose a simple background to keep it from competing with the complexity of the subject. Shades of phthalo blue-lavender to viridian-lavender give a very subtle shift that doesn't quite show up in this image, but offsets the compliments of scarlet, corals, and yellows in the Ranier cherries and the bright venetian glass bowl and its reflections. The hand blown Venitian glass vase blends in more with the background glazes, but I didn't want it to stand out much anyway. It is there to give height to the composition and offset the short curves of the smaller bowl and the angularity of the leaded glass bowl. The star of this show is the intensity of color, which really pops next to all the cool hues in its supporting cast member, and the stark white of the table cloth.