Cantaloupe with Grapes
6″ X 6″ Oil on Raymar canvas board
“Cantaloupe with Grapes”
For this painting:
The colors I used in this painting were various cadmium yellows, reds, and cadmium orange. The cadmium colors are brilliant but transparent colors. They work great over a dry white background, but I was working on wet dark background so it was a real challenge to get the brilliance I wanted. This photo is not an exact representation of the color in the original painting but it is the best I could get.
For the orange on the cantaloupe, I tried mixing cadmium yellows with cadmium red light but that resulting orange was not as brilliant as I wanted. The only solution was to use cadmium orange strait from the tube. Because of its transparency, I had to apply it several times, letting the bottom layer dry a little overnight.
If you are painting flowers or anything that requires brilliant colors, you will need a full range of colors that you can use strait from the tube. I like to have cadmium yellow light, medium and dark, cadmium orange, cadmium red light medium and dark and alizarian crimson for my color range between yellow and red. These are only needed if you want the most intense (brilliant) colors. Otherwise you can usually mix the color you need from your basic primary colors. This is because anytime you mix one color with another color, you will lose some intensity.
Grapes are always a challenge. I used Prussian blue because it is the darkest blue in existence. I also mixed the blue with ivory black for the darker less intense areas. I used dioxazine purple for the base color of the grapes. It is a more intense purple than I would have gotten by mixing red and blue. Prussian blue is not a good blue to mix the color purple because it has a greenish cast to it.
If you have to mix purple you should use ultramarine blue and alizarin crimson for the best result. If you want a very intense purple, buy some and use it strait from the tube. (The red highlights on the grapes are cadmium red light.)
Hey this is an amazing job you have done with this painting. No doubt it must have been the Challenge for you while painting the grapes but still it looks fantastic.