A Teaching Exercise - Still Life on the Road to Eyeries, Beara, Ireland

Still Life Discovered on the Road to Eyeries, Beara, Ireland Here are questions intended to alert you to sharp observation of the edges in your reference material. Look at how each shape meets the adjacent one and ask yourself what the value difference is, how the color changes, does the edge disappear or remain crisp, is one color on an edge warmer or cooler than the adjoining edge?  Look for all of the similarities and differences. If you do this, you will see several varieties of edges in one photograph (or in the landscape elements if you are painting out of doors).   Ask yourself: "what do I know how to do that will make it possible for me to paint this kind of edge convincingly"?

There are many kinds of edges, but not very many different techniques required - what is necessary is that you can identify what you are intending, and be clear in your mind how you can do it. If you just can't figure it out, take a few minutes and imagine: putting a dark brush stroke on a light background. Result: a sharp (hard, crisp) edge. Mixing two juicy (not watery) puddles of paint of different colors and try to have both mixtures about the same ratio of water and pigment. Paint a shape of each mixture beside each other, letting the edges touch. Result: a "soft" edge (lost, merged) Mix a dark green puddle, an ochre-brown puddle and paint them next to each other, but not touching. Leave about ½" of white paper between them. Then mix a mid-value red-violet with less water than the first two mixtures. While they are still damp, paint the narrow strip between the green and violet. If the ratio of water and pigment is satisfactory, you will have created a "color bridge" between the green and violet which will make two beautiful edges. The red-violet is a complement of the other two mixtures and helps "knit" those two very different planes together without a hard line between them. This, in turn, creates a sense of distance and recession. If you were to paint the dark green shape onto a dry ochre shape with a hard line, it would be a very different effect. Both are necessary at different times. It all depends on what you are trying to describe.

EXERCISE   Make a sketch of the photograph. Paint the sunlit part of the wall. Only the values are important for this exercise. I would use Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre in varying values for the stone, and mix a mix-valued neutral "mauve" for shadowy areas. I like cerulean blue and a tiny bit of cadmium red to create that neutral mauve. You can also use cobalt blue and red. Mix a rich dark for the two pots, and a warm dark value for the wall that is in shadow. For the pots, I used ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson, quinacridone burnt orange, and yellow ochre. I let these pigments mix on the paper and then at the right hand edge, I charged in a brush stroke of Holbein's Verditer Blue. This is an opaque pigment and I added just a tiny bit of water so that the blue stayed where I put it, creating a soft, lighter area in the shadowed wall. Opaque pigments do not "travel" as extensively as the transparent pigments.    Now paint the side of the large pot that is in the shadow, and continue into the shadowed wall, letting those two edges merge into a "lost" edge. Since these two shapes are very close in value, you do not need to stop at the edge, merely adjust the color to the next shape. The small pot can be painted in the same way, with just one edge meeting the dark shadow.     NEXT WEEK I'LL TALK ABOUT SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW AS IT APPEARS IN THIS PHOTOGRAPH. IT'S THE PERFECT ILLUSTRATION OF A VERY IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE. SEE YOU THEN! HAPPY PAINTING, Evelyn www.evelyndunphy.com artist@evelyndunphy.com