Medium: Oil Category: Still Life
This oil painting demonstration is from Bill Creevy's book, The Oil Painting Book: Materials and Techniques for Today's Artist published by Watson-Guptill Publications of NY. Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All steps in this demonstration are included.
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An Oil Painting Demonstration of
the Extended Alla Prima Technique
YELLOW APPLES
OIL ON CANVAS, 11" x 14" (27.9cm x 35.6cm)
by
BILL CREEVY
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"Typically, alla prima paintings begin with thin turpentine washes in just a few colors to block in the composition, usually on a white ground. Textures and details are then developed gradually using fuller-bodied, progressively "fatter" paint and a more extensive palette."
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1 To get the preliminary lines of the painting in place, I used burnt sienna and ultramarine blue. The colors have been thinned with turpentine and as such dry quickly.
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2 Here I begin to add the first touches of local color. The apples are being painted with a mixture of cadmium yellow light and Naples yellow.
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3 This is a loose application of all the local colors. The oils are still being thinned with turpentine at this point.
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4 I apply more color and smooth it out with foam rubber rollers
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5 The second layer of local color has been applied and smoothed out even further with foam rubber paint rollers.
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6 Here I begin to add heavier applications of oil paint. The colors are now no longer thinned with turpentine; instead, I use them just as they come from the tube.
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7 These fresh layers of paint are blended and smoothed out with a fan blending brush. |
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8 I use a small paint roller to further smooth out the colors. |
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9 Here I'm applying final opaque color along the base of the painting. |
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10 The painting is now almost done. All the apples are finished and have been smoothed out with fan blenders and small foam rollers. |
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11 Before I complete this painting I decide to lighten up the background behind the table. I want to exploit that red as an underpainting for a warm white. To do this, I paint over the wall area with a special unbleached semitransparent zinc white made by Williamsburg.
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12 With a palette knife, I carefully scrape away some of the semitransparent white to create a "scumbled" texture. |
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Finish This is the completed painting, which I did in one day using the paint in a direct manner with no medium added except for a bit of gum turpentine in the early stages. There is a "blonde" and pearly quality to the work, due primarily to the high-value colors I used and the opalescent white background with a bit of red showing through.
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Yellow Apples by Bill Creevy
OIL ON CANVAS, 11" x 14" (27.9cm x 35.6cm)
Check the full listing for Bill Creevy's "The Oil Painting Book" at Amazon.
This demonstration from The Oil Painting Book: Materials and Techniques for Today's Artist by Bill Creevy is published by Watson-Guptill Publications of NY. Reprinted with permission of the publisher.
Artwork and Text Copyright 2008 by Bill Creevy
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