365 Paintings in 365 Days #45

5x7 inches
Oil on Board

This is inspired by a photo. The image is a little darker than the painting.

Learning Points:
1. Light and shadow. I really liked the photo I used as a reference because of the nice grey shadows iin the background. But, it was such a hard line, when I blended the shadows and wall edge it worked better.
2. White is not white. The surface the pine cone is sitting on is not white. I learned this by watching a youtube video and realized they were putting "greys" down. What looks "white" is actually a grey, and not a very light grey at all.
3. Threshold. I usderstand that this is more important in landscape paintings. But I trie to incorporate it in all or most of my paintings where it is a little darker at the bottom of the painting.
4. Shadows are not black. The shadow of the pine cone is dark grey scrumbled with burnt umber and yellow ocher, the same colors I used in the pine cone.
5. Limited pallet. I used 4 colors only; burnt umber, yellow ocher, pursian blue, and french ultramarine blue with the addition of titanium white
6. Mixing blacks and greys. I mixed my black with burnt umber and pursian blue, and another one with burnt umber and french ultramarine blue. And then did a value for greys which gave me to wonderfully different greys to use.
7. Details. Those little pine cone thorns are not painted on. I used a bamboo calligraphy pen to scratch them in, the same with my signature.