Clementines are so tasty this time of year, I wanted to paint some. Peanut loves them so much she made an I Love Cuties sticker book. The synopsis on the back cover reads "In this book I will tell you how much I love Cuties by colecting the stickers on each page. There will be a difrent kind of stickers from a Cutie." She's a little cutie herself! Although she could work on spelling and grammar...
I planned on painting a large bowl of clementines, but we ate too many for that, so I adjusted my composition a little. I entitled it "Outcast" and I'm sure you can see why... poor little clementine on the left!
Outcast 8 x 10
I'll show you how it's done in just 10 steps. Grab your supplies and paint along with me! Don't forget to post your finished painting... I'd love to see it!
First of all, I set up my still life. Don't you just love how professional it is! I uses boxes, baskets, or whatever to get the still life to the height that I want. So classy! I usually prefer my subject close to eye level, rather than looking up or down at it. Also, make sure you set your easel up so that your canvas is eye level, regardless of whether you are look up, down or straight at your subject.
The above photo on the left is my setup before turning on my spotlight and the one on the right is with my spotlight on. You can see just how much light is coming in my little "window" that I cut into the box. The clementines look much more vibrant and the light really brings out their form and the reflections on the table. Much better! My painting isn't exactly from this angle, but it's close.
Again, this is the pallet that I use. In the steps below, the "dark mixture" is a mixture of half Ultramarine Blue and half Burnt Umber.
In a prior post - Paint with me: How to paint a pear in 10 easy steps - I described the sames steps, but it more detail. Check out that post if you would like additional information about any of the steps.
Step one: The Basic Shape
This is just your basic geometric shape painted with your dark mixture, thinned with odorless mineral spirits or whatever you're using for cleaning brushes. Again, this step is so quick that you might be tempted to skip it, but it's very important. For this painting, I initially pulled out an 11" x 14" canvas. I realized after painting the basic geometric shape that the clementines would need to be the size of oranges or I'd have too much negative space. I wanted them to be clementine-sized, so I switched to an 8"x10" canvas. Making changes before you really even get started saves you time - and who couldn't use more time!
Step 2: Draw the Shadow Areas
Using your thinned dark mixture, paint the shadow areas with straight strokes. Even though my clementines are round, they're going to look like a part of an octagon here. You are painting the shadow side of your subject, too, not just the shadows that they cast on the table. You can see on the right that I got carried away and went on to Step 3 before I could snap a photo. Oops!
Step 3: Paint the Shadow Areas
Paint your shadow area with cadmium colors added to the dark mixture. I used Cadmium Red Medium. The canvas in these areas should be more smooth, so use just enough paint for the white canvas not to show through.
Step 4: The Background
Paint your background with black, white and whatever background colors you want. I chose to add ultramarine blue and I usually add a little raw umber to warm it up a bit. Crisp edges around your subject will make it look cut out, so keep the edges soft and loose. You want some of your background color to get into your subject and vice versa. Check out the clementine on the top... I got quite a bit of blue in there and that's okay. I blend my background just enough to look right to me... still loose enough to give you the sense of atmosphere. The only time I use a flat background of just one color is if the background is black.
Step 5: The Light Areas
Paint the light areas, loading up the brush for texture. You can see that the most textured area is toward the center of the light area, getting smoother toward the edges of the light area. I used Indian Yellow and Cadmium Yellow for my lights.
Step 6: Reflected Light
Add reflected light, which is light bouncing back onto the shadow side of your subject. The reflected light is pointed out below. You can see that there really isn't much of it. (My colors are a little wonky in this photo. Sorry!)
Step 7: The Midrange
Now add the midrange (areas between the lights and darks), using brighter, more saturated colors just a bit darker than your light areas. I love this step, because then the canvas is now completely covered and you can start to hone in on some of those delicious details!
I'm sure you've noticed that more than the midrange changed here. Once I put in my midrange my clementines were looking much too yellow and most of my shadow areas were too dark. I lightened the shadow areas and added a bit more "orange" (cadmium red and yellow). I also worked on the reflections on the table.
Steps 8 & 9: Cast Shadows and Highlights
Add the cast shadows using your dark mixture, lightening them as you move away from your subject. Paint highlights using a brush loaded with white and/or Indian yellow, gently placing thick paint. Don't blend the highlights! I always think they look so goofy close up, as you can see in my enlarged photos below. Remember to take a few steps back and see how they look.
Step 10: Details
The last (and most fun!) step is adding the details. Details include -
- Adding anything that hasn't been painted yet - I added the stem to the clementine on the left.
- Darkening some areas and lightening others to better focus on subject - I usually darken the outside edges of my shelf so your eyes don't wander off the canvas, but instead go toward the subject. If the light is coming from the left (I almost always have it coming from this direction. It just feels better to the OCD part of me!), I usually darken the bottom left and upper right of the background. I do the opposite with light coming from the right. I didn't choose to direct the light in the background of this painting, which gives it a softer look and is also why the dark areas I initially painted just didn't look right.
- Throwing subject colors into background - Here I added some cadmium yellow in various places in the background. You can best see this in my finished painting way over on the right hand side.
- Adding "halos" around your subjects - These are added to the light side of your subject. I went a little halo crazy and added them to 3 of the 5 clementines. Sometimes there is only one halo. It just depends on how I feel about them that day. I feel like they give a little life to the subject.
- Crisping up some edges and blending out others to create lost edges - I smeared out little bits of my cast shadows with a scrubby, dry brush to create lost edges. This gives you the sense that the clementines are connected to the table and to each other.
Here is a closeup of the clementine on the left (poor outcast!). You can clearly see the highlight, halo and lost edge. I hope you enjoyed painting with me!
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