Continuing with Weekly Challenge for WetCanvas – this week the color was Cobalt, who can resist this color.
I experimented with this piece using black paper (Strathmore Papers, Artist 500 Series) – wow, does it change the look or what?! I’m not a big fan of this paper, performs much differently than the hardboards I prepare myself. I have a lot of this paper so I thought it would be a good to use up the supply I have left. I’ve used black paper only one other time- the jury is still out for my taste.
I use Windows 8 photo gallery and InfranView to edit photographs I take of my paintings. So I’m really sorry because the cream in this image is screaming white and my yellow ochre isn’t showing up on the peel – yikes! I haven’t been able to figure out how to correct this, but I’m sure I’ll get there with more practice. Perhaps when painting I may cut back how much I lay down of oil pastel creams and whites by 1/3, and that may help when taking photographs of the paintings. Any thoughts or suggestions on this would be so appreciated.
This oil pastel is a 4×6 still life that I setup for this challenge.
Cobalt Plate with Lemons
I have just figured out with the help of many wonderful artist and photographer friends what the issue has been with my camera (I’ll be doing a post on this). But for now, I have photographed the painting again and thank goodness this is much closer to what the original painting looks like.
Cobalt Plate with Lemons
Oil Pastels by Mary 
lemons are my favourite fruit …
beautiful Mary xx
HI Cat, thank you so much – glad you liked the painting! I’m into lemons too ~
Lemon in everything – aha ! 🙂 beautiful Mary !!!!!!
I love your lemons Mary! The cobalt is sublime.
Thanks Elena – Senneliers oil pastels are very creamy and have a buttery feel to them. The cobalt blue went on silky smooth and I just loved painting with it.
Like it Mary. Love the mauve/ blue in the right fruit
Thank you so much for your wonderful comment. I really appreciate it!!!
Love it Mary ! I love the colors of blue and yellow composition in your painting 😃❤so talented❤
xxx
Hi Violet – thank you!! I really appreciate your comment, so nice. Wish you could see the painting in person – my photography skills are not very good and the white is way to bright on my image here. So your comment is really welcomed!
I love this painting! For about the first three seconds, I thought it was a photo then, I saw your name and made the link to paintings…
Oh my, you are so kind – thank you very much for your comment. Totally appreciate it!
Very nice!
So nice, thank you!
Your welcome
There it is your painting of Lemons!!! Wonderful work Mary…You are so talented!!! 🙂
HI Eva, yes – but I will say your lemon image was fantastic. Thank you for your gracious comments!!
Youre welcome and thanks again for your kind Words!!! 🙂
I really love how you handle the light on the plate and on the moist lemons. This is beautiful. I’ve read that using a 18% gray card can help your camera with color accuracy, but I know very little about it.
You are very kind, thank you Scott. I’m going to check out the 18% gray card to see what that means and how it might help when taking photographs of my work. Thanks very much for your comment!
i loved it before i saw it! long ago i hung some watercolor studies of lemons on a wall papered with wide bands of cobalt with a fine white pinstripe. i love your lemons and cobalt plate!
You know how to make me feel better! I’ll bet your studies turned out gorgeous – they sound beautiful. This piece looks seriously better in person, so what I might do later on is a lemon study on prepared hardboard to see if the results are better than what I feel turned out here. The pastel paper, shows way too much texture and tends to take really bad photographs – giving the image a garish look to the creams/whites. I had to turn down the contrast so much that the painting lost some of its luster. Oh well one for the journal – what not to do! I’m real happy with the cobalt plate though, it has that rich look about it. I think I’m going to paint a seascape, need to make myself feel better.
last week found me in mindo with zero paints or paper. i had my brushes… i bought cheap little tubs of paint the size of 35mm film containers and bought even cheaper paper, the best i could find, and i did a few studies of butterflies.. like you, i was not happy with the results because i am accustomed to paper more suited to my needs. makes us appreciate the good materials when we have them!
You are so right, materials make a huge difference. I have a lot of Ampersand Boards and prepared hardboards for my landscapes and seascapes, but made a conscious decision not to use these good resources on the weekly challenges.