I have decided to put myself through a course of painting in the basics, as a refresher. In this part, I first did a value painting by:
1.Using burnt umber for the darks
2. Rubbing out my light areas;
3. I then went over it all again to darken the darkest areas, and added a touch of white for the lightest areas.
I then painted the local color over it once the under-painting dried. I call it “pumpkin soup” because it is a small pumpkin, a box of bone broth, and garlic salt. I can’t wait until next week, when I get to paint a portrait of an animal!

I did this on a canvas pad, the final is 16″X12″. The underpainting took two hours; the color study took 3 hours to complete.