I've painted this little pitcher before with strawberries. I love how the light from above reflects off the gilded table top and illuminates the gold luster on the bottom of the pitcher.

The paper was prepared with a light coat of a neutral gray gesso so I could begin analyzing the relationships of value and color temperature from this middle value. I took comparative measurements of height to width and sketched in the jug lightly with a white charcoal pencil, analyzing all the relationships of horizontals, verticals, angles and negative shapes as I went.

As I started to proceed with paint, I could see that the inside of the jug was about a middle value 5, but the temperature was slightly warmer. I arrived at this conclusion by placing my neutral gray gessoed paper behind the jug and deciding if the gray inside the jug looked warmer or cooler. Once I established this, I used it as a point of comparison to begin finding all the subtle value changes that would describe the form of the jug. I placed the brightest white highlights, some of the warm background color, the deep red around the rim and the darkest umber shadow under the jug. From there it was a lot of squinting to see how each value compared to all the other values and making adjustments where necessary.

Now available in my shop are recent small original oil studies on Arches oil paper. They are meant to be quick sketches, trying to capture accurate color and values of the subjects without too much time spent on refining details.

The oil paper is similar to heavy watercolor paper so they can be framed the same way, for example, with or without mat, mounted on a board, etc. It is recommended not to put them behind glass so that the oil paint will have access to air in order to cure properly.

I'll be adding more studies soon and hopefully regularly, so if you would like to be informed of their availability, please subscribe to my mailing list!