FREE PAINTING TUTORIAL - STILL LIFE - APPLES

In response to a question on a forum last year I decided to create this tutorial to share with you.
The question was about the need to rule up grids to draw to prevent running off the page as your drawing progresses.

Grids are fine but very tiresome and there is an easier way to freehand your work and keep your drawing or painting on the page.

I am using a very special painting for this demo.
The reason it is special to me is that it was the first oil painting I did and from a life study at the age of 16.

I have provided a large version of it for you to use for practice.
LINK: APPLE PAINTNG IMAGE
Feel free to copy it to learn by but please do not sell the painting you produce if you do.

The easiest way to make sure you image is placed on the canvas or paper correctly is to establish "anchor points". By this i mean if you divide the canvas up in approximate thirds/quarters, whatever you can see applicable you can place a couple of marks on the page that MUST be correctly place. They anchor your drawing and you use these to measure everything off these marks.

ONE OR TWO IS ALL YOU NEED!

This image shows the two anchor points (stars) and the blue lines I first chose to draw in.

The trick to all this is to SELECT THE MOST OBVIOUS TO THE LEAST OBVIOS SHAPES.

WORK LARGE DOWN TO SMALL.

Now you look for the large areas of dark making sure you are not too literal with the tone, gradually apply the tone and build it up as you tune into the shapes.

If you squint your eyes down at this stage you will be able to eliminate most of the smaller detail.

With a Drawing this stage would be more about clarifying the next biggest differences between your drawing and the subject and clarifying the smaller shapes, angles etc.

With a painting (this painting) it is time to add the main colours. This painting doesn't have many so it is easier to break this process down.

Placing a few mid tones and more smaller anchor points for the centres of the fruit and a few smaller shadows

With the bulk of the placing established and the main tones suggested I now establish the darkest areas better giving the shapes more definition as I go.

I have now added the other not so obvious colour making sure they are balanced over the whole painting.

I also look for the strong contrasting lights and place them.

Now the ghost like image starts to look clearer.

From here it is looking at all the differences and making further adjustment.

A push and pull process making sure you don't over state anything that is not in the subject.

Again here you can see the image getting clearer and you can decide to stop at anytime depending on the amount of detail you wish to end up with.

This was painted quickly for the purpose of a demonstration only however I enjoyed revisiting the subject I paint toooooo many years ago.

If you enjoyed this tutorial and would like to see more.
Email suggestions to me


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