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Darrell Brown paints simple, seemingly timeless "portraits"
of fruits and vegetables. |
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A few days ago a reader came to me with a good point: If an artist
running a workshop can talk about the philosophy behind his or her oil painting art, all
the better. But what the reader really loved to do was just watch a
painting happen. I couldn’t agree more. Seeing an oil painting progress from
blank canvas to completed work is high on my list of awesomeness, too.
American Artist has always been in step with this as well. For decades
the magazine has devoted hundreds of pages to painting demonstrations
that reveal an artist’s process from beginning to end—like this one
from New Orleans painter Darrell Brown. The steps below outline Brown’s
oil painting techniques and guide you from blank panel to his finished
work, Red Tamarillos.
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Find the center. |
Find the center. Using a red-sable brush and iron-oxide oil paints
thinned with turpentine, Brown starts his oil painting by pinpointing
the visual center of his still life and creates a line drawing of the
objects. He works out from the center of the panel. He also draws a
¼-inch barrier around the edge of the panel to reference where a frame
will eventually overlap the work.
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Block it in.
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Block it in. With filbert brushes, Brown blocks in the fruit’s shadows
and the background and foreground values. He leaves the areas
indicating the mass of the fruit white so that the eventual layers of
color will pop with intensity and brightness. Artist tip: If the color
of the fruit is earthy, opaque, or dull, Brown recommends toning the
entire panel with raw umber or a mixed gray.
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Paint on a "large" scale.
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Paint on a "large" scale. Brown layers in the big shapes of the fruit
with iron-oxide pigments, cadmiums, or cobalts when appropriate. He
emphasizes the basic value contrasts in the work, from the deep shadows
in the background to the bright highlights on the fruit. Only then does
he zero in on the small shapes—the stems and areas around them. For
these small areas, he uses pointed round brushes.
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| Going back in. |
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Going back in. Ready to overpaint, Brown brushes a thin layer of
retouch varnish over the dried areas of the surface that appear matte.
This allows him to bring up the true values of the darker colors in his
composition. He paints from darks to lights, and uses transparent
pigments to capture the visual effects of light across the forms, from
highlight to light, shadow, core shadow, reflected light, and cast
shadow.
While the paint is wet he softens edges and refines details of the
stems. His final step is to apply a layer of transparent color and
glaze most of the surfaces of the fruit to build up the paint and tone
down the reflected light in the shaded areas. After the painting dries
for several days, he applies a light layer of retouch varnish.
Seeing the end product—a painting—and knowing the steps and strategy
that went into it makes all the difference in my appreciation of a work
and my understanding of the process. Art is funny that way—there’s
always something to learn from looking at a work as it progresses,
especially if you can see a sequential demonstration like Brown’s.
That’s why American Artist’s latest special issue, Step-by-Step
Painting Guide is going to fly off the shelves. Artists want to see a
painting happen—American Artist delivers!
