I’ve fixed some of the drawing issues in the block in and painted in the background and the red part of the handle. For this study I am trying Winsor Newton Artisan Water Mixable Oils. These paints are much less expensive than Royal Talens Cobra and Holbein Duo Aqua. I’m also using a Naphthol Red, instead of Cadmium and am finding its transparency makes it harder to get a full value range with decent saturation when painting on top of the dark underpainting. I’ve been adding a bit of yellow, in addition to white in the lighter values to keep the red on the warmer side.

This composition is interesting in all four orientations. I keep rotating it as I paint and haven’t decided which is best. I’m thinking this design will be really fun to do as a 48″ x 60″ painting.

Starting a new study, inspired by the success of the Diagonal Cutters. If the study goes well, I will do it as a 48″ x 60″ companion piece.

This study is 16″ x 20″ and at this point is just an block in with a thin wash of diluted paint. The black markings are vine charcoal notes from crit.

I’ve painted in the background and the shadows and added a bunch of small specular highlights. Overall, the larger painting size has been a good thing and made painting easier. The only challenge is that I haven’t been able to work wet into wet quite as much as I’d like because each painting session takes so long. As an example, I painted the green shadows one day and when I came back a few days later to do the yellow tabletop, the green shadows were dry so I couldn’t feather them into the tabletop. I will need to either do longer painting sessions or get good at touching up the soft edges after the fact.

My plan for the painting is to first repaint the red handles to better turn form and darken the form shadows while making the ends recede into the distance. Then I will, in one session, redo the green shadows and then darken the yellow background, while feathering in the penumbra where the green and yellow meet. After that the painting should only need small touch ups and a signature.