By: Susan Martin Spar ( View Profile - Contact )
How to Paint a Still Life using a Grisaille
An afternoon jaunt to ChinaTown in Victoria, BC netted me this lovely Tea Pot. I fell in love with the dragon. For illustration purposes, I decided to keep the composition simple by using only a few objects. Here's the set up. I ended up changing a few things once I began the lay-in. It’s important to note here that I’ve provided a photo for the lesson to illustrate what I was working from. I never use photos for still life and I worked here from life as I always do and encourage my students to do as well.
I love to paint lace and it's always a challenge to make it come out right. I nearly always have to remind myself to take my time on it. I'm always glad when I do.
I started the painting with a basic monochromatic under painting using some 
acrylic black and white. I would normally not use acrylic, but oils for a grisaille but I didn’t have much time here and needed to finish the painting in a single sitting so acrylic fit the bill. I wanted to get a feel for the light in this piece and a good value study is always helpful. You can see that I kept things pretty loose and used a relatively large brush. I avoided details and just kind of played with how I wanted the brush strokes to go.
That's one of the cool things about working with acrylic at this stage. You get to see how things will play out. The lighting for the background was a bit tricky. I wanted it to be atmospheric and not too dark. But I didn't want it chalky either. I knew the transitions would be important.
In the next picture you can see that I've laid in a background mixed from burnt umber, cad yellow and a touch of Naples Yellow for the lighter hue. I've blended that with a darker mix that has a bit of Ultramarine Blue and no Naples Yellow in it.
I smoothed out the brush strokes with a very soft black sable Performen brush. I 
love these brushes. They have a multitude of uses and cost relatively little compared to other sables. www.ASWexpress.com carries them.
Here you can see that I started with the base color of the tea pot. I've used titanium white, Naples yellow, some background color and a touch of Ultramarine Blue. This is mixed in three shades from light to dark. I'm very careful to conserve the lightest light which will be used later for highlights on the pot. A good thing to do when you are painting a light colored piece (or any color for that matter) is to squint down and compare the value of the object right next to the highlight. You'll be surprised at just how dark by comparison it really is. Remember to keep your shadows thin and the lights thick. There's actually a good amount of paint on the lighter areas.
Now the peaches. First I mixed the shadow color using a bit of Alizarin Crimson and sap green. I pushed this into the shadows of the fruit. Next I mixed a light mixture of cad yellow deep, cad light, background green and Naples yellow - keeping the mixture light and not trying to over mix it. Stir it together on 
your palette like you are making muffins. Too much mixing and the muffins go flat.
Things are not too defined here and I'm keeping my edges soft. I'm looking for value changes and just trying to make sure that things stay where they are supposed to. There's actually three peaches on the right. One in front of the other and I'm struggling here to get one pushed back and the other brought forward.
A note about edges: Edges are like the marks on a music sheet telling the musician when to go slow and when to go fast. You edges are supposed to act as guides to the viewer, signaling them as to the pace of the painting. Your job is to conduct the symphony and lead the viewer where you want them to go. But it's best to leave all your edges soft until you get to near the end stages. Then you can adjust edges with a little more authority.
Notice the spout and how it appears to be covered with background color. That's because it is. When I lay in a color or area behind an object, I don't paint to the edge. This creates a edge that is too crisp making objects appear cut out or pasted on. The trick is to "paint through" the object. You can come back in later and paint back into the area appropriately. I've added it finally and put a light passage near the top in the next photo. I've also laid in a basic color for the grapes. I started with Alazarin Crimson and black but changed that to cadmium red and black. Worked better.
Here comes the lace. I thought a lot about what I was doing here so that I could explain it to you as I go along.
Basically, when you paint lace - and this goes for almost any medium, you paint the holes last. After laying in the cloth with a similar mixture to that of the tea pot being careful to put shadows in, I took a bit of Raw Umber and background mixture and then took a soft brush and kind of stippled in the designs of the lace where the holes were. Don't worry too much about getting all the detail. If you get started with a basic pattern, just repeat it with a few variations making sure to follow the folds of the cloth. Pay attention to the lights and darks (overall values) on the cloth. You don't want to go light where you should go darker. Oops! You can see I messed up got some paint where I didn't want it - namely on the peach. No worry - everything is fixable.
In order to brighten some of the pattern and make it stand out more, I mixed some of my light mixture with white and Naples Yellow and thickened it with Maroger. Then using a small brush I picked up bits of the paint and laid it on the areas where I wanted the pattern to stand out. NOT EVERYWHERE! Sorry. I sometimes get excited with my personal students too. Good thing they like me. Here's a close up before I put in the brights.
A note here about brush strokes. David Leffel (my hero) says that you should not be able to hear the stroke of the brush on the canvas. If you can you either don't have enough paint on the brush or you don't have enough medium on it. You should practice getting just the stroke you want with a loaded brush. A deliberate stroke that is not correct will look 100 times better than a correct passage that is overworked. This takes practice. Lots of it. So get your paints out and start painting a piece of fruit a day. By the end of the year, you'll either be fat as a cow from eating your leftovers or you'll be a genius at laying in paint. Or maybe both, but it will be worth it.
Ok. Here you can see the lights a bit better. Now that lace is starting to come to life. Now it's time to fix those poor peaches.
Let’s move to the picture below.
Placement is important here so I push the one in the back further against the background and reduce it's size a bit with background color and some adjustments to the cloth. This peach is furthest back and so it needs a soft edge where it meets the background color. I dragged some of the green down into it and soften the edge with my brush. The edge against the pot is a bit harder. I want a little air there between the peach and the pot. The colors are mixed with Cadmium Red Light, Cadmium Yellow Deep and Cadmium Yellow Light. Not all mixed together, mind you, but in subtle ways to bring the color of the peach out. To turn the edge, I've used some of the back ground color and Alazarin Crimson where the light turns to the shadow side.
The second peach also needs to be back a bit but not as far back as the formost peach. I've added a bit of green to the mixture. The peach fuz on the top is a mixture of Cobalt Blue and a bit of white. I've kept it's top edge soft and the left edge a bit sharper.
The peach in the foreground is lower on the surface of the lace. This brings it forward. It's edges are a bit sharper as well. But the shadow side is soft. Note the core shadow on the foremost peach. It turns the fruit.
I've added color to the grapes. A bit of blue (cobalt & white) for some reflection and a bit of Cadmium Yellow and Rose for the areas of the grape where light shines through. The highlights are thick and I've run the end of my brush through them to add texture.
The handles have been ignored until now so it's time to give them a little attention. This is a simple mixture of Yellow Ochre. I've laid them in here with a bright brush to keep the square look I'm after. 
Next I lightened the mixture a bit and laid it into the areas where the light is hitting. Notice how everything is still fairly rough.
Lastly, I take a bit of umber softened with background green and make tiny little lines to indicate the weave pattern on the handles. Next I was on to the dragon design. Using some Ultramarine Blue and some Maroger Medium, I mixed a glaze and carefully worked in the design of the Dragon. While I wanted to stay 
true to the feel of the illustration, I didn't want to belabour it so I didn't worry too much about every little mark. This part took about 1/2 hour.
After the dragon was finished, I put the design along the top edge of the pot in. I changed it from the design on the original pot to something simpler (my back was killing me).
From this point on, I adjusted edges, checked 
measurements and put in the leaves behind the fruit. Oh, yeah...notice the highlight in the final photo. See how light it looks against what you thought was a really light pot?
Phew. An all day painting session, but it paid off.
What do you think?
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