Egg and Pitcher

Happy new year!

I've started a few new paintings. I wanted to take some in-progress pictures again and this egg painting seemed like a good candidate. I'm using a limited palette here of 50/50 Titanium/Flake White, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, and Ivory Black (Old Holland brand). I am using a 50/50 mix of Graham Walnut Alkyd and Stand Oil as my medium. I think I will use a little bit of Indian Yellow and Ruby Lake glazes to get some extra warmth in the shadows, but that should be the extent of my palette on this one.

It's on a 6x8 inch panel.

Day 1:

First I toned the panel with some burnt umber and turpentine. I put it in front of the fan to dry while I set up my palette. I mixed a little bit of my medium in with each color on my palette. After getting the initial sketch and values painted in with burnt umber, I got a rough first layer completed. I used bristle brushes for this stage.

Day 2:

The Walnut Alkyd/Stand Oil mixture caused the surface to be slightly tacky by the next day. Still wet enough to work with but tacky enough to accept more paint. I switched to small sable brushes for this stage. I made some adjustments and refined the shape of the pitcher and some of the reflections. I think at this stage the underpainting is finished.

Next up is glazing. I'm going to try to keep glazing at a minimum. Glazing attracts too much dust, and I find that it is too difficult to control it on such a small painting. Plus I don't really like the gloss.

The egg needs some orange tones added to the shadowed side. A little bit of warm tones need to be added to the pitcher as well. The wood table still needs a lot of work. The reflections need to be toned down a bit, and I also have to add in the wood grain. The grain is very subtle in this piece of wood so it shouldn't take too long.

Day 3/4:

Done

I did a couple layers of glazing and I think I can say this painting is finished. I brought some more color into the shadows with Alizarin Crimson, Ruby Lake, Indian Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, and a touch of Viridian. I went with a few more colors than I had originally planned but I think the wider variety of color looks better. In addition to the glazing I went in with some Titanium White and put in the final bright highlights and reflections.