Paints used in this painting:

·         Titanium white

·         Burnt umber

·          Mars black

·          Yellow ochre

For a while I have wanted to learn how to deal with painting water in a glass.  It always just seemed so impossibly tricky to get right. In my case it was no time like the present….

Glass with water preliminary sketch on canvas

 I worked from a photograph drawing out the main shapes and lines paying special attention to the shape of the ellipses in the water and where and how they met the inside of the glass.  At this stage of the drawing it was important to make sure the edges of the ellipses had a slight curve to them.

In this painting I didn’t use a coloured ground on the background, rather paint directly onto the white canvas.  I used a Burnt umber wash in areas where I could see a slight warm glow. There wasn’t very much, but it would add a slight glow for when I added in the darker tones in the next stage.

I used Mars Black to start blocking in the darker tones to the painting using thicker paint than the previous application because these areas needed  to be dark and I didn’t want any of the white of the canvas shining through.  Then I added white to the Mars Black and created a variety of mid tones (grey to almost white) to develop the glass and background further.  The next stage I used a mix of Yellow ochre and a touch of Titanium white and scrubbed in some of this yellow tone into the background. I did not include any of the colour I was seeing in the background as I wanted the painting to be quite monochrome.  Then with a smaller round brush I painted the spaces on either side of the fine rim of the glass. With this method I could create a smoother, clean ellipse shape by painting up to the rim.  This fine line helps to add refinement to the painting.  Finally some white highlights just using Titanium white, and the addition of some small subtle hints of the green/grey tone onto the very bottom of the glass.  This helped to subtly bring the background tones together with the rest of the piece.

And voila….

Glass with water, close-up #1

Glass with water, close-up #2

Glass with water, close-up #3

Glass with water, close-up #4