The Making of Stickler by the Cup

February 28: I'm still doing the underpainting on the shapes. It's slow going because I have a day job which lately has involved some travel that's kept me from working on this. That's the way it goes sometimes.

March 9-12: Moving right along now, the underpainting is nearly completed. The next step will be to finish the background. After that, I'll go back over the shapes.

March 20: Having finished the first underpainting layer on the background and all the shapes, I'm painting the next layer on the background. I'll need to add a third layer on top of that, partly to cover stray pencil marks (which tend to show through lighter colors) and partly because I'm adding a wide, vertical swath of a slightly darker color and shading the rest of the background to the current lighter value at the ends. The difference in tonal value is enough that some brushstrokes are more visible in this darker area than I like and a second coat will take care of that. The difference is probably hard to see on many computer monitors, so I put an arrow on the picture below to indicate where the darker color (to the right of the arrow) meets the lighter (to the left). In this picture, I've painted the darkest part and haven't started the process of shading that will gradually lighten the background color so you may be able to see the contrast. When finished, the shading from light to dark and back again may be too subtle to see well in an online image, especially since the camera flash tends to "wash out" the middle of the painting. The effect definitely will be visible when viewing the painting in person.

March 24: The paint on the aforementioned swath of darker color hasn't quite dried yet so there's glare from the camera flash in this picture. In this shot, I haven't started shading the background from that darker color toward the lighter color at the ends.

March 29: Here you see the background shading more or less finished. I shot it at an angle in an effort to reduce the glare, but it still washes out a bit on the right side and the contrast is boosted. In real life, the shading of the background color on the painting is smoother than it appears here.

Although the painting is starting to look like it's close to finished, I still have to put another coat of paint on all the figures. In doing so, I'll be adjusting the colors and tonal values to achieve (I hope) a better balance in the finished picture. I won't be posting too many more photos here before it's finished because this last part is about as exciting as (ahem) watching paint dry.

May 16: I've been picking away at the finish work on this one. The lime green was just too much, and here you see the much darker green I'm painting over it. I'll be making a number of adjustments like this over the next month or so.

June 15: This painting is finished.
Click here to see the finished painting, Stickler by the Cup.

Watch another painting take shape.

Got a question? Ask me.

The Making of Stickler by the Cup Oil on canvas, started Feb. 12, finished June 15, 2002 24" x 48"	Home About the paintings Bio Read a review © 2002 by Bruce Mitchell. All rights reserved.
Click here to see the finished painting, Stickler by the Cup. A brief, illustrated history of how this painting was made below, in chronological order. February 12: Here you see the initial pencil sketch and the first underpainting for the background. This new painting is starting out a little differently than its predecessors in this style. All the previous ones have started with a spontaneous pencil sketch executed directly on the canvas. This one is based on a napkin drawing.
February 15 & 16: I've begun applying the underpainting to the shapes that make up the image. This involves two processes; selecting the colors, and refining the boundaries of the shapes. The color selection is largely intuitive, but it's bound by certain rules I've established. A shape cannot touch another shape of the same color or touch another part of itself that is the same color. Any area of one color must have sufficient contrast in tone and hue to clearly separate it from all adjacent colors. This sometimes means I'll adjust the colors when painting the next layer. February 28: I'm still doing the underpainting on the shapes. It's slow going because I have a day job which lately has involved some travel that's kept me from working on this. That's the way it goes sometimes. March 9-12: Moving right along now, the underpainting is nearly completed. The next step will be to finish the background. After that, I'll go back over the shapes. March 20: Having finished the first underpainting layer on the background and all the shapes, I'm painting the next layer on the background. I'll need to add a third layer on top of that, partly to cover stray pencil marks (which tend to show through lighter colors) and partly because I'm adding a wide, vertical swath of a slightly darker color and shading the rest of the background to the current lighter value at the ends. The difference in tonal value is enough that some brushstrokes are more visible in this darker area than I like and a second coat will take care of that. The difference is probably hard to see on many computer monitors, so I put an arrow on the picture below to indicate where the darker color (to the right of the arrow) meets the lighter (to the left). In this picture, I've painted the darkest part and haven't started the process of shading that will gradually lighten the background color so you may be able to see the contrast. When finished, the shading from light to dark and back again may be too subtle to see well in an online image, especially since the camera flash tends to "wash out" the middle of the painting. The effect definitely will be visible when viewing the painting in person. March 24: The paint on the aforementioned swath of darker color hasn't quite dried yet so there's glare from the camera flash in this picture. In this shot, I haven't started shading the background from that darker color toward the lighter color at the ends. March 29: Here you see the background shading more or less finished. I shot it at an angle in an effort to reduce the glare, but it still washes out a bit on the right side and the contrast is boosted. In real life, the shading of the background color on the painting is smoother than it appears here. Although the painting is starting to look like it's close to finished, I still have to put another coat of paint on all the figures. In doing so, I'll be adjusting the colors and tonal values to achieve (I hope) a better balance in the finished picture. I won't be posting too many more photos here before it's finished because this last part is about as exciting as (ahem) watching paint dry. May 16: I've been picking away at the finish work on this one. The lime green was just too much, and here you see the much darker green I'm painting over it. I'll be making a number of adjustments like this over the next month or so. June 15: This painting is finished. Click here to see the finished painting, Stickler by the Cup. Watch another painting take shape. Got a question? Ask me.