Stainless Steel Tea Kettle
8x8 Acrylic on birch plywood panel
SOLD
During my final step, I've reestablished some of the lighter areas in the background. And I've also made sure my brightest highlights and darkest darks are satisfactory.
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Here I've added Yellow Ochre, Burnt Umber and Cadmium Red to the background and reflections. I've also added some Ultramarine Blue to the reflections.
I usually keep working on the highlights and dark areas as I go along since I sometimes dull them accidentally, especially if I'm using a large brush.
I've been fighting with the Blogger editor for days now. I can't seem to get it to format the way I'm accustomed to. It adds extra blank lines, doesn't put blank lines where I want them etc. Anyway, I'm trying it again. I'll try to keep it simple. One photo per post.
At this stage, I've started to glaze some Burnt Sienna into the background, and also in parts of the reflections. I'm beginning to see the potential of the color stage.
Stainless Steel Tea Kettle (Dead Layer)
8x8 Acrylics on birch plywood panel
Metal objects are a source of great fascination for me. How can mere paint take on the appearance of shiny metal? The trick to painting metal is to paint exactly what you see. You must get lost in the abstract shapes and patterns that are reflected in the object. You can't think about the object you are painting, just the shapes.
Once you step back and take a look at the entire painting, your brain will take over and make huge assumptions based on your past experiences with viewing and handling metal objects. The reflections in shiny objects follow the contours of the object's surface. The color hue will give you a sense of what kind of metal it is. You may subconsciously know that the object would feel smooth and cold if you could touch it. And I'm certain there are many more complex things going on in the brain that deal with perception and reality.
This painting is a WIP (Work in Progress) and is at the Dead Layer stage. It's painted on birch plywood panel. When I paint on panels, plywood or hardboard (Masonite), I like to build up texture when I apply gesso to make up for the lack of texture that canvas gives. I also apply matte gel medium between painting sessions to further build texture and seal the painting for further ease of glazing.
Next stage is color...
Here are some progress photos showing the stages that I normally follow to produce a painting. It's a modified version of the Flemish Technique. When I get around to it I'll put together a short article on the subject to describe it further.
For now, I can tell you that it involves a series of stages that build upon each other to produce a realistic result. It might appear that there is a lot of extra work in this process, but once you get accustomed to it, it goes relatively quickly.
Silver Teapot 2009
by artist Mark T. Woodland
12x12 Acrylic on canvas
SOLD
Here is the final result. It might require some tweaking as usual, but nothing major. It's amazing what a little color can do to bring an essentially black and white image to life.
One side effect of painting something in such detail is that you become very familiar with the object. I'm sure this teapot will be featured in more paintings. I think some oranges would have been nice...
I found this teapot at a flea market antique dealer. It's probably from a common inexpensive silver-plated set from my grandparent's era. I've seen pieces of it around at other flea markets and garage sales. One of my favorite things to do is to browse through someone else's stuff. You never know what you might find or learn about the people that collected it.
It's funny how artists try to fight their natural tendencies. I've always wanted to be an impressionist because I feel it's much more expressive and creative. But I always ended up refining the details. This teapot is the epitome of where my style of painting is heading. It's becoming a contest with myself to see how realistic I can get, and what kinds of objects work best to achieve that. Metal, glass, ceramics, water, shadow and light are some of the key ingredients so far.
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