Marmalade #1

This is a set-up that contains a brass scuttle with a white and blue porcelain handle, a white porcelain jar with a blue design, and a handful of kumquats - mandarins were too big, and anyway I have a recipe for Kumquat and Pear Chutney that goes well with duck....

The set-up - note that the jar has been resized down in PaintShop Pro - it was originally the same size as the scuttle, creating a conflict of interest between the two major components of the composition. You can clearly see where I merged the layers on top of the left-most kumquat!

The next task is to interpret the colours in the subject. To that end I reduce the photograph to 16 colours in PaintShop Pro.

Using this image as a reference, I block in the underpainting with a limited selection of hard pastels - CarbOthello pencils, Nupastels and Rembrandt sticks. The support is my usual Clairefontaine Pastelmat.

Next I start to develop the porcelain jar, using a range of Rembrandt greys from lightest through about four darker shades. I also make use of the Rembrandt blue-grey shades to obtain a greater sublety in the colours; all are blended by finger. The darks surrounding the jar are in the main the darkest neutral grey by Schminke, which is a very warm grey, to contrast with the cool greys of the jar; this will also harmonise with the colours of the brass scuttle, assuming I continue to use it behind that section.

To be continued.....