Almost Alla Prima

It's Autumn, coming on Winter in New Zealand, so the fruit selection at the grocery store was pretty sad last night. No cherries, watermelons, red grapefruit, etc. The avocados were also particularly small and squishy, but I can't wait to paint them when I get back to Vancouver. I did get some rock melon and persimmons though!

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I don't know if this is an improvement upon yesterday, but at least it was a chance to try some new colours and textures. I'm trying to do these daily paintings alla prima (all at once) in 1-2 hours, but I don't think I have the skill to add the  melon seeds and yellow (grey?) webbing on the shell without muddying everything up beyond repair. I'll come back to those in a couple days.

I tried Carol Marine's method of thinking of the painting as islands and oceans: islands - high saturation colours that would be ruined by muddiness - are painted first, with the less vulnerable and saturated oceans painted around them. In this case the first island was the meat of the melon, since it's quite a light pinky orange, followed by the brightest middle part of the mandarin.

Things I learned today:

• Don't be afraid to paint thicker
• Take more time to organize palette and mix the right colours in relation to each other
• Get a small palette knife for mixing colours without spreading them thin all over the palette