This oil painting project looks at the form of a big and beautiful natural shell. We follow the same process of creating first a tonal drawing within a grid. Here is Rip’s version:
Following are three palettes we are using in this painting: the grisaille (black to white underpainting), warm and cool ultramarine and burnt sienna, and cadmium yellow light and burnt sienna (for your warmer and creamier whites):
On a burnt sienna ground, Shannon draws out her shell before painting, with vine charcoal:
Rita has completed her grisaille, and is working on her first color pass, after it has dried:
Following is the shell image and the first color passes on Lourdes’ painting:
And finally, a photo of my shell, followed by the first and second color pass:
I will do a third and maybe fourth color pass after this, to fine tune color, edges and contrast. The beauty of shells reminds me of the inspirational and ever available subject matter to be found in nature.