Creating a Classical Still Life Oil Painting

The first step in completing my still life painting was staging and choosing a good reference photograph. Since the painting could take several weeks - if not months - to complete, it would be necessary to use a photo reference instead of painting directly from life. I liked this photograph of two pears that I'd taken because of the interesting lighting and shadow effects. I made sure to crop the photo so that its dimensions would match those of the canvas I planned on using and that the placement of objects was visually appealing, not too close to the edges and well-balanced.

Having cropped and adjusted my reference photograph, I used the grid method to create a rough charcoal sketch of the subject on my prepared canvas. The grid method helps you ensure your drawing is of the proper dimensions, although a skilled artist can also draw completely freehand instead. This sketch is to place the objects onto the canvas and also block in major light and dark values. I tried to refine the drawing as much as possible before moving on to the actual painting stage, as a mistake even this early on in the process can be difficult to properly correct later on.

This step is often the most surprising to those unfamiliar with traditional painting techniques. After sealing the charcoal drawing with fixative spray but before diving in to color, I completed a full monochrome underpainting of the pears in a greenish hue or "Verdaccio." The Verdaccio is mixed from Flake White, Mars Black, and Greenish Umber. The objective with the underpainting is to refine the charcoal drawing further and pinpoint the tonal values for the painting precisely. Since some layers from this point forward are to be completely transparent, it is imperative that the underpainting be very precise. Any errors and adjustments from the charcoal drawing need to be corrected for here.

An artist can spend days - if not weeks or longer - working on a very precise underpainting. The careful work at this stage will pay off well with the final results.

Once the underpainting was completed and dry, I began "testing" my color choices by applying thin color glazes. These glazes are made from painting medium (my choice is Liquin) and small amounts of transparent oil paints. By slowly building colors through thin glazes, you can create that magical "depth" illusion you see in many classical oil paintings. Glazes can be repeatedly applied, different colors on top of each other or the same color again and again to increase its intensity. Just be sure that the glaze beneath is fully dry first, otherwise you may begin pulling it up and off the painting surface or cause spottiness and striping in the colors.

I continued to add glazes of colors such as Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Viridian, Yellow Ochre and other transparent or semi-opaque pigments. Glazing helped develop the many varied colors of the pears, from green to yellow to red, and also allowed me to create the feeling of depth in the shadows with thin colors instead of thick paint - a trick used by many Old Master painters to create a realistic effect.

Opaque colors are avoided during glazing because they will appear chalky or muddy, and cover over the values as established in the underpainting.

Once the glazes were almost finished, I added some opaque highlights and accents to complete the realistic illusion of the pairs. These paints included Zinc White mixed with color for the highlights on the pears, and a small amount of Cadmium Red and Cadmium Yellow to "pop" out the pears just a bit from the background and make them appear more "solid."

I tried to sparingly use these opaque colors so as not to interfere with the beauty of the glazed colors, and also because thick paint applied over thinner, medium-rich paint can cause a painting to develop cracks over time.

For more examples of my classical and realistic paintings, visit my art website at http://www.nicolepellegrini.com/. I work in a number of different styles and techniques, and here you can find out more about each painting - as well as where I'll be exhibiting my work in coming days and months.