Still Life Painting

Sketching the objects to be painted is a must. Sketching has to be done before painting.

The artist has to pay special attention to the size of the objects in relation to each other, to the background and the composition as a whole. Student should learn to draw the proportion of the objects correctly indicate perspective of the objects in their various shapes and positions. Them direction of the receding lines and ellipse formation of cylindrical objects are of great importance. (EG bottle, pot. Paint can ETC) Mix the colors to be used properly. Colour mixing is an important aspect of painting and designing exercise. Knowing the colour combinations to use is not enough, mixing and obtaining the right colours is very important.

Preparation in still-life painting:

 Assemble your painting material. EG: colours, brushes, palette and water.

 Choose your range of colours (palette) if you are not painting monochrome.

 Study once again the effects of light on the parts of the various objects. This is to determine the right tone to use in painting light and dark parts. This is the art of shading in colour.

 Know the class of colour especially group of warm colours (Red, yellow or orange) and cool colours (Blue, Green and purple) learn how to fuse one colour into the other by proper blending.

 To obtain a darker tone of any colour add a slightly darker colour in your palette or a little bit of black. You can apply this to dark areas.

 To lighten a colour, white is added to it or a related color that is equally warm. EG applying yellow will help in showing highlight on an object that carries tones of green.

 Cool colours are for dark areas of objects while warm colours are used for showing bright parts and areas of highlight. High-lights can also be indicated by living such parts untouched with brush and paint.