I began a course on Acrylic painting online with Will Kemp Art School.  The idea was to not only improve my painting techniques, but also to explore how to get acrylic to look like oil with all those beautiful shiny glazes and reflected light.
The Acrylic pigments I used were as follows:

• Titanium white
• Burnt umber
• Ultramarine blue
• Yellow ochre
• Cadmium yellow light
• Permanent Alizarin crimson

And Acrylic mediums for the glazing and the isolation layer:
• Acrylic glazing liquid gloss
• Soft gel gloss

The photograph

I used a cotton canvas panel instead of a stretched canvas. On top of that I painted a coloured ground (or base coat) in a mixture of burnt umber and titanium white.  Once the coloured ground had dried I used a 3B pencil to draw the subject matter onto the panel.

Initially I struggled to get the scale of the jug right, it just seemed so big to me, so I kept drawing it much larger than it really was in relation to the other elements. In the end I put on a grid to see what it was I was doing wrong, only then did it became obvious that I was drawing the jug way too big!  With that sorted the rest fell quickly into place. I’m not sure why the jug seemed so big to my eye, maybe the shape and the solidness of the pottery glaze….  At this stage drawing the spoon was easy. It was when I had to paint the reflected and foreshortened light onto the spoon I started having anxiety attacks!

Much like I did with the jug and the cherry I began blocking in the darker shadow tones using just the burnt umber and a little water, the mix wasn’t very thick at all, quite watery in fact, but not too watery so it would drool down the canvas. In the more finicky areas of the still life I used a smaller brush more suited to detail work for accuracy. I worked in thin layers to tone down and balance areas of my painting and to make sure I had the tonal balance correct.  A tip to make this part a little easier is to use a black and white photograph of your still life to assess the tones more accurately.  From there you can further adjust your ground work.  I tend to get very easily focused on the colour rather than the tone and by using a black and white photograph you eliminate this issue.

Next, the introduction of Titanium white. This helped me identify the range of tonal values in the painting and establish where the ‘lightest light’ areas were. By introducing the white, and later the ‘darkest dark’ (a mixture of ultramarine blue and burnt umber to create an almost black) I am better able to achieve a full tonal range, which, if I’m lucky, will help create a sense of realism in my painting.

After laying all the ground work I then begin adding the ultramarine blue areas to my painting. The teacup took a lot of time because I wanted to create as closer representation as I was able to what was in front of me. Once I had added the darker tones I began introducing lighter tones using a mixture of titanium white and ultramarine to the teacup.

Once the tone of the Jug has been painted in and I had balanced all the lights and dark’s I began adjusting the shadow of the jug.

(sorry this photo was taken in artificial light so it has a more yellow quality)

And then came the lemon…..  Using pure yellow ochre I painted in the general colour of the lemon. After readjusting the jug again I used a mix of burnt umber and yellow ochre to match the colour of the lemon more closely.
Before I began working with my full colour palette I laminated the photograph I was working from. Laminating the photo allowed me to test the colours I was mixing on the actual photograph for tonal accuracy and a more realistic look.

That done, I began working in the cadmium yellow light and the permanent alizarin crimson. I always find this part of the painting process both exciting and frightening, because for me this stage is either make or break. If this works, then the painting will work out fine, if it doesn’t it’s back to the drawing board!

Adding a glazing liquid to the paint helps to diffuse the edges so you can achieve subtle blends, especially on the lemon and the jug where you don’t want hard lines of paint showing where you are trying to create a rounded shape.

Finally it is time to bring things to a finish by tidying up the background tones, the tea cup, jug and lemon. I found the teaspoon the most challenging thing to paint at this stage, partly because of its metal reflective surface (the whole spoon was one of reflections and reflected light) and the foreshortening of the angle of the spoon.  Paint what you see, and not what you think you see is usually very good advice for these little ‘foreshortening conundrums’!

Still life with teacup, jug and lemon

Acrylic on canvas panel

24 X30 cm

Right at the end I added thicker paint to the highlights. This helps create the illusion of three dimensions by keeping the highlights thick and the shadows thin and translucent. And lastly I created a glow of reflected light to the cast shadow on the teacup and teaspoon by mixing cadmium yellow light with the glazing liquid and then washing it over areas of the painting emphasizing the reflected yellow light from the lemon.

And the last step after signing my name…..  In order to protect my work and give it that more professional finish I painted over the completed canvas with an isolation layer in a soft gel gloss (no varnish).

Still life with teacup, jug and lemon, close-up #1

Still life with teacup, jug and lemon, close-up #2

Still life with teacup, jug and lemon, close-up #3

Still life with teacup, jug and lemon, close-up #4

Still life with teacup, jug and lemon, close-up #5

Still life with teacup, jug and lemon, close-up #6