Monday, February 7, 2011

The Coffee Jar


A great little coffee jar photo reference was posted over at Paint & Draw Together blog as this months challenge. Lela gave us some instructions for this one:

1) Background. In the reference photo there is no background, just plain blue-gray zone. I would like you to try to paint a simple background that will communicate aerial perspective with an undefined space behind the jar.

Another artist asked the question I was going to email & ask: what is meant by "communicate aerial perspective" - Lela gave a more detailed explanation and gave a link to an artists work that conveyed this concept: http://antonovart.com/Oil_paintings_archive/index.htm

Once I scrolled through the work, I was taken by one particular piece of work that shows the rays of the sun across the back wall & adding the light to the subject. That was the effect I was going for in this - the sunlight coming in on the left, lighting up on the wall & giving the coffee jar the added light on it's left side.

To be honest, I repainted the background 3 times - none of the times I was happy with it. Although this last time does finally work for me. You'll have to let me know what you think.

Acrylic on 9x12 canvas

3 comments:

Autumn Leaves said...

Nancie, I saw this jar on someone else's blog and I didn't realize it was for a challenge. I so love this jar and you've done this so gorgeously! The coffee beans are the perfect touch and I like that background and it definitely lends to the depth of this piece.

Karla said...

This is a fantastic painting Nancie! You got the 3-D on the jar perfect.

Debbie Later said...

No wonder our backgrounds are "similar" I think we were both inspired by the same painting! I like yours better than mine. I will post on Monday, I am going out of town.

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