| Introduction
The texture of a fabric, a translucent object, the reflection of light on a surface - all these can be difficult problems for the oil painter. In pursuit of my own specialty, character painting, I find it necessary to deal with a large variety of these problem subjects, which makes me all too aware of the potential disaster of not being technically well rounded. It is my hope that this series will provide the internet artist with the techniques necessary to paint a wide variety of items, from fabrics and jewelry to wood potatoes, and pottery. These items might form the focus of a painting, a still life for example, or they might be props in a portrait painting. In either case, it's important to be able to render all areas of the painting equally well. Although this series can't possibly include all the subjects you might want to paint, you'll find that you'll be able to apply techniques learned to an infinite number of other things: if you paint silver then you can paint gold; a wine glass can be modified to become a windowpane; the technique used to paint a silver urn also applies to a mirror, and so on. In the firm belief that "problem subjects" need not become stumbling blocks but, rather, that they can be used to enhance a painting, I invite you to pick up your paintbrush and accompany me as I demonstrate just how to approach many of these "problem" subjects.To paint glass well, you have to get over two rather large stumbling blocks: drawing the glass accurately and rendering its translucent quality. Most subjects in this series allow some leeway in drawing, but a glass doesn't allow even this minimal freedom. A poorly drawn glass will be ludicrous no matter how well you render its translucency. Your only touch of freedom comes in the application of minor color reflections, which leads us to our second problem. The ability to recreate translucency is very important if you hope to produce the essence of glass. To achieve the translucency seen in the below demonstration, apply your paint thinly to allow for a great deal of delicate blending. You can be much "brushier" - which means using thicker paint - and still produce a well rendered glass, but you will not be able to achieve a high degree of translucency. I'll try to present two situations in one in the below demonstration. The glass is seen against both dark and light, which should enable you to handle your subject against any background. In reality, the glass is sitting on a white piece of paper. However, the white seen through the glass becomes an off-white, which I'll darken even further to set off the highlights of the glass. because I've darkened the off-white paper seen through the glass, I also had to soften the rest of the paper to an off-white to tie the glass more tightly with the surroundings. One further observation about glass: shadows cast from glass are often soft because no opaque mass exists to block the rays of light. |
| STEP 1. My sole aim in step 1 is to capture shape and proportion accurately. Since the glass is sitting on a white base and I'm painting on a white surface, I leave the lower area of the canvas unpainted for now and begin by indicating the dark background with a wash of Raw Umber and a touch of Yellow Ochre thinned with turpentine. I lay this in roughly as a rectangular shape; it's more practical to lay in this dark area first and then paint the glass on top of it, rather than draw the glass first and add the dark background afterward.
Next, I use some white to draw in the upper outlines of the glass on top of the Umber background. I prepare a thicker white to show the prominent reflections and highlights, such as those found on the rim and in the bowl. I then draw the lower half of the glass on the canvas with thinned white and a bit of Umber. (A bit means a LITTLE bit!). Again, I indicate major reflections - such as those on the stem and base - by using thicker paint. |
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| STEP 2. I continually check my drawing so I don't disturb my guidelines as I proceed to fill the canvas with the approximate values. I use white with just a touch of umber for the paper underneath the glass and also fill in the large reflection of the paper in the bottom of the bowl with this tone. Because I'm painting into the raw umber background, this reflection won't appear pure white.
I put the stem and the base of the glass in tones of off white rather than pure white, so that the final touches of white will really glitter by contrast. I use the white will a touch of umber for the light areas such as in the base. For the areas in both the stem and the base that appear a bit darker, I use just a bit more umber into my mixture. The small darkest reflections - such as those on the right side of the stem and on the perimeter of the base - use a bit more umber yet. For the very lightest spots in these two areas I use the white with the slightest touch of umber. Precision counts when painting glass, and I find it necessary to use a small brush to capture the minute but important value changes. |
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| STEP 3. I add ultramarine blue and yellow ochre to my palette. Accuracy in painting all the reflections and highlights is of the utmost importance now, for it serves as a prelude to the high degree of blending required in this step.
First I lay in my final background of raw umber, sharpening the outlines of the rim and sides of the bowl. Now I use strokes and spots of white to accentuate the highlights and reflections seen on the rim and extending from the rear edge of the rim. Due to its curvature, the bottom of the bowl houses a complex pattern of reflections and I use all of the different tonal values on my palette, and a combination of raw umber and ultramarine blue for the darkest spots. I finally dab few spots of pure white for the highlights. The ultramarine blue and raw umber is also for the darkest reflections seen in the stem and base and I use pure white for the highlights. To complete this step I combine yellow ochre and raw umber to outline the perimeter of the base where a yellowish reflection appears. Then I paint the extremely faint shadow extending from the glass to the lower left with white and a bit of umber and brush it very lightly into the white. |
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| STEP 4. I add cobalt yellow (aureolin) to my palette to mix with yellow ochre for the yellow reflections. Except for the final bright highlights, the entire process of creating a glassy effect consists of blending what you've already laid in. I begin by blending together the tones in the bottom of the bowl stem, and base of the glass just well enough so that they merge softly.
To show the translucency of the glass against the background in the upper portion of the bowl, I use a sable brush to lightly blend the white rim and highlights into the raw umber already on the inside of the bowl. Notice that slightly more white is apparent in the front section of the bowl than in the rear due to the double thickness of glass that you're looking through. Now I'm ready to add my bright touches of highlights and reflections. These take the form of streaks or dots - such as the yellow streak on the left side of the bowl or the dots of color in the bottom of the bowl. After changing the paper beneath the glass to a bluish gray, I mix raw umber and ultramarine blue together to use for the shadow around the bottom rim on the right and the cast shadow extending from the left side of the rim. |
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| So there you have it. A solution for that pesky glass that is often the bane of many a painting. Don't leave it out just because it presents a problem. Master the problem and you will have mastered the painting. Next we dig into the problem of FUR!! See you then! |