"jim's decoy and daisies": finishing touches

there really isn't much left to finishing this painting. so, on to the rest of the bottle and decoy and the lemon slices on the cutting board.

i told myself that i was done with the flowers and now that i look at it i decided to reclaim some of the whites. there are enough that i didn't think lifting was going to do it so i elected to use white watercolor. gasp! yeah, i know there are those who think that an opaque, especially white, is heretical. well they also say to work from light to dark with numerous weak washes, too. i guess i have ignored that for long enough that this seems like a minor transgression, plus i think it will serve my purpose. because i shot this photo with a flash (it was night) you can see where the white is around the spout of the coffee pot and flowers at the bottom of the bouquet and also a bit around the top of the decoy's head. i hadn't intended to have this show (i think it also may have still been wet) but it did come out a bit reflective in the flash and therefore visible on the photo. so, i will let that speak for itself. using a #10 round i finished the bottle using quin. gold and olive green, again being careful to preserve some highlights and put a blush of something warm on the label. the decoy's body was painted with burnt sienna near the front and a combination of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna farther back. the cast shadow was put in right after that. the slices of lemon required a smaller brush so i changed to a #6 round and put in the outer rind with cadmium yellow medium, the inner pulp with a dilute raw sienna leaving a white bit between the two, and the cast shadow with cobalt blue.

"jim's decoy and daisies"

at this stage i looked things over and decided that the decoy needed to be darker, so i strengthened the color with mineral violet and burnt sienna on the breast and a darker version of the same colors i used previously on the anterior body. i didn't want this dark value to abut the very light coffee pot so i lightened this body wash as i moved back toward the tail. the bottle needed the label going around the back side and i put that in with a darker version of the previous colors used on the bottle. lastly, i put in a the cast shadow of the decoy's beak on the top of the lemon. in retrospect, i wish i hadn't done that even though it was present on the set up. it really doesn't add anything. i finished the junction of the table top and the wall on the left, too.

so after a hiatus of about two years, i finally figured, i have reprised the beginning of my watercolor career by doing a still life. i had my doubts early on that it was going to be okay, but i rather like the result. i probably should try another while i have the decoys and i am in the groove. the next project will be a still life only in the vertical (portrait) orientation, but still using the decoys and flowers as the main characters.