In Progress - Four

Here is another large painting on my easel right now. Its working title is Four. In the photo you can see I'm working through some lighting issues on the blocks. The nice thing about oil paints is the number of layers of paint you can apply and how long the paint can stay workable, particularly if you use special mediums to extend it. These characteristics allow an artist to work through many different issues as a painting progresses. Also, notice that I chose to work directly on white canvas instead of toning it first. Mostly I think this is a personal choice, but some would say that working on white can lead an artist to paint too lightly. I have not found this to be the case, perhaps because I use a dark pigment (umber) for the earliest layers of paint and also because I'm working loosely in the still life genre. It would be difficult to execute a portrait without a toned canvas due to the degree of detail and many nuances between dark and light areas on the human face.