Following up on last month’s post, I decided to do another still life in a similar technique with a bolder approach: jelly jars in sunlight. Having learned that acrylic glazes can create dynamic and smeary, uneven color, and that many acrylic painters take advantage of this effect, I wanted to try it with these sunlit jelly jars. I thought the subtle shifts in color observed by the light passing over the lemons and illuminating the more translucent strawberry preserves would lend itself well to this aspect of the glazing process.
I told a friend recently that acrylic glazing is a technique best suited to painters who are “fixers” in their painting style. This is because acrylic paint in washes dries in about five minutes and a second layer painted to adjust (fix) the color or value can be applied without mixing with or disturbing the first layer. And adding medium to the paint will make the adjustment very subtle at the same time as creating interesting translucent and streaky effects. Trying to do this in oil isn’t really possible. While layers of oil paint that have been thinned with solvent can be adjusted with a layer that is significantly thicker, repainting repeatedly or failure to adhere to this “thick over thin” rule in oils will just cause the paint to mix and get muddy. This is the reason many oil painters use the alla prima technique: they will place a single brush stroke and then leave it alone. That has been a challenge for me in oils. I guess I am too much of a “fixer”.
In this painting, I feel the “fixing” added a loose impressionistic effect almost by accident.
My reference photo is courtesy of the Unsplash website of copyright-free photos:
My process:
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