A Difficult Colour

Gum Balls  18" x 12"

The jar of gum balls seems to me to be a world unto itself.  In the top half of the jar there are reflections of the windows and colours of the room in which it resides, and then all of these are reflected in the glass on which the jar sits.  

The lid of the new Bernardin jar is much shinier than the old Mason jars I've painted which I think worked with the luster or sheen of the candy.  The reflections were enjoyable to paint, exploring all their effects.  This is what I like about realism - it allows you to observe all these possibilities through the medium of paint. When you have to create these images from scratch it really makes you see how objects and the space they inhabit are perceived.  

I'd never used such saturated greens and yellows before and it was challenging to then shade the shapes so they looked three dimensional.  The more muted colours of the gum balls in the table reflection were painted by mixing burnt umber and lamp black with the brighter colours.  Then I added a little more lead white in the lighter areas.  The following day, I scumbled some grey, made of lamp black and lead white, over the area to tone it down further without losing the colour.

For me, pink is a difficult colour to get right.  You need the proper red to start with or you'll never get the shade you want.  I tried an alizarin crimson, which was much too cold.  So then I used a Winsor and Newton cadmium red medium, with a little yellow ochre to warm it up.  This seemed to work when mixed with the lead white.