Author: Pierre Labeau, Contributing Editor

Here is a green bottle to add to my glorious collection. Ah.....the proverbial green bottle! I've seen it in a hundred paintings. However, be careful how you render it for a poorly painted bottle is worse than none at all. This place is the pits. Gigi says if I don't get a raise soon she might leave me for someone with money! Blech!

Begin by working the basic outline of the bottle along with the raffia covering.

Since the walls of the glass bottle are thicker and closer together at the top of the neck (see arrow) less light is able to get through, which makes the bottle appear darker at this point. As the bottle gets wider toward the middle more light filters through.

In order to give the impression of transparency to the glass the inside of the raffia covering is shown through the bottle. This also shows that the bottle is round.

The addition of extreme darks and highlights gives form to the bottle. Notice that the dark side of the glass area is on the right while the dark side of the raffia is on the left.