This project looks at depicting a reflected space that is shallow, but indicates a suggested deep space. We are going to use a square tetrad again: green, red, violet and yellow. The green we’ll mix using ultramarine blue + cadmium yellow light; the violet we’ll mix using ultramarine blue + cadmium red deep; the red is cadmium red deep; the yellow is cadmium yellow light.
One of my favorite mirrors are the Mexican hand made and decorated that are popular here in the Southwest. We’ll do first a tonal gesture drawing in graphite, and then I’m going to sketch in the lights using a combination of grays created by mixing the violet and yellow.
I like to work on a wooden panel – it’s about the same size as the actual mirror. I’ve primed the panel with a cherry stained varnish, which I use as a dark middle value.
In Becky’s and Ramona’s paintings below, they have first put a burnt umber/ultramarine wash on the canvas. While that is still wet, they pull out the highlights and middle values of the mirror using a brush or rag dipped in a little turpenoid:
They will continue after this is dry, using the violet and yellow mixtures. More on that next time!
