STILL LIFE

Due: Wednesday, Sept. 25

Introduction
   A still life painted from objects that you can observe directly will be the subject for this project. That is, it will not be done from memory, imagination or from photographic sources but rather from observation. The subject is up to you, so you will want to give careful consideration to what you are going to paint and why. Gather your still life objects and bring them to class. Set up and light your subject for this work.

Materials and techniques
   This project will be painted on a wooden panel using an indirect painting technique. You will learn how to assemble and prime a wooden panel support. Indirect painting builds the painting up in a series of distinct layers. The process separates drawing the image, painting its value or light-and-dark contrasts, and applying color into distinct stages the artist can consider one at a time. It was the favored method of most painters up until the 19th century, and is still widely used by representational painters today. Viewers are often impressed by the great illusion of depth developed in Old Master paintings. Indirect painting is one of the secrets behind this look.

Stages of making an indirect painting
1.) Begin by scrubbing an imprimatura on the board using very dilute burnt umber and a broad bristle brush. Use very thin paint so as not to leave any texture.
2.) Use a round sabeline brush to draw the image on the panel. The paint should be so thin at this stage that it leaves no texture on the surface. It should be watered down like ink. You can use burnt umber for this too.
3.) Next do a monochromatic underpainting using white paint and one dark color like black or burnt umber. In a cup, mix the black or burnt umber with white to form a medium-dark value. Also in cups, mix three evenly spaced colors between this mid-dark value and white, making five values in all.
4.) Paint all the light and dark structure of the image with these values. Intermixing them as needed.
5.) Color the forms by applying glazes. Glazes are very transparent mixtures of color and medium.
6.) Make any additional changes needed to bring the painting to a finished state using opaque paint and glazes as needed.

   Indirect method eases the transition from drawing to painting for beginners and illustrates one of the methods the Old Masters used to get the smooth, subtle and deeply spatial effects they were able to obtain.

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