Jugs And Vases

This weeks subject at AVA had me in a bit of a dilemma. I loved the idea of painting jugs and pots. I collect blue and white jug so have lots to choose from, but I also have a small but lovely set of copper pots and jugs. As its winter and I felt like using some really warm colours, I chose the latter. I selected a couple of jugs, added a lemon and a bunch of yellow daisy flowers, taken from my collection of photos, and completed the drawing prior to the club session.

As a start to the painting, I had to decide on background or subject first. I get asked lots of times, what makes me chose one or the other, and I have to admit to not being really sure. Maybe, today I was influenced by the yellow daisies which I hoped would merge into the background as secondary to the copper jugs. Anyhow, thats what I went with. I was using the second half of the sheet of Whatman paper, described in the previous post, so I had no need to stretch it. The usual set of colours for the background.... Indian Yellow, Quinachridone Rust and Indigo.
I used plenty of water, so I had to be patient whilst waiting for it to dry. As the subject was Jugs and Vases, I tackled these first, trying to get all the wonderful colours that exist in a copper jug. I kept everything a little wet, so that the colours merged, trying to get the well-used appearance of each piece.

The lemon and the flowers came next, trying to keep them dark on the LH side and very light on the RH side. I tried not to paint each petal individually, but just a mass of colour. This means that the pencil lines from the original drawing had to stay in place this time.

After adding the shadows, I thought it was finished, and although the camera has lit up the daisies and the LH jug, when I got home I thought the painting lacked umph and the flowers were really quite insignificant.

All I needed to do was darken the background behind the flowers and add a little more vibrant colout to the larger jug, and the result was quite a bit more powerful. I loved painting the copper pots but realise that this is much harder than it looks and I will need to have some mores goes at it before hopefully, getting it right.