Small Mexican Pitcher

I wanted to demonstrate the progress of a small painting from blank canvas to finished work, with some commentary about my basic approach.

I start by choosing a model, which in this case is a small painted pitcher I bought in Mexico a few years ago:

First, the form of the object is very simply blocked out. I never use pencil or charcoal to sketch in the painting. Instead, a very thin wash of burnt sienna is used:

The darkest areas are painted. This is important as it "keys" the light, in other words, establishing the lowest range of dark. Paintings can be keyed to the highest light, as well.

Prior to tackling the pitcher, I paint in the surrounding background to provide context for the main object.

The body of the pitcher is now laid in, with some attention paid to establishing its roundness. At this point, I am painting with very thin washes to establish all the forms and relationships before using thicker paint.

I go ahead and lay in the remainder of the background. About 90% of my paintings are done on canvas, either stretched, or mounted on panel. This painting, however, is done on gessoed panel, which has wonderful properties but requires a very different approach. Up to this point, I have been using bristle brushes, which are fine for the block-in, but they leave a very streaky appearance. For the rest of the painting, I will be using nylon and sable brushes. Sable is the traditional (and quite expensive) choice for doing detailed work, but lately I've been preferring the consistency of the feel of synthetics.

Using thicker paint now, I lay in the foreground, shadow area, and the background. My original plan was to smooth out the background into a fairly uniform surface, but as I worked into it, I realized I really liked the roughed-up look of it, so I left it essentially untouched after the first applications.

Thicker paint is applied to the darker areas of the pitcher. Notice that at this point, there is not a whole lot of concern for painting the roundness of the object, just laying in major areas of paint. Gradations and blendings between these areas later on will establish the roundess.

I now paint in the light areas of the pitcher, again laying in only the big forms.

Having now painted the body of the pitcher, I'm now ready to blend it all together into a round form, and to start to apply details. I will also be refining the way the light falls on the object, in particular adding in highlights. This is the point where the painting really starts to come alive for me; it is almost always my favorite part of the process.

And, the finished product: