Alla Prima Still Life

Demonstration
By Jeremy deck

The painting along with the setup.

1. A quick dry-brush drawing was created using abstraction of shapes, counting 2. Items painted-in one at a time. Details were left out as much as possible for as
spaces, point-to-point relationships, alignments, and triangulation to gain accu- long as possible to establish the big relationships and maintain freshness of han-
racy of shape and scale. The lights were wiped out. dling. The value range from darkest dark to lightest light was established.

In a study like this , as someone who naturally gravi-

tates towards a tighter approach to painting, I have to
be diligent about “sneaking up” on the final effect. I often
bring something to much less of a level of “completion”
before moving on to the next item than I normally would
in more refined work. Near the end of the painting, I can
carefully add anything I feel is lacking, hopefully as taste-
fully as possible. Also, I try to avoid painting right up to
the contours or edges of masses, to allow for a certain
amount of “dither”. If you look closely in the example
3. Often, the masses were scrubbed in with a hog bristle to allow for 4.The final sketch. The process slows down considerably near the finish. I find
above, you can see the ground showing at these borders.
textural/layering possibilities and to speed up the process. Bristles and Mon- that in the pusuit of unnecessary details, I can easily spoil the intial frank han-
Again, at the end of the process I selectively add hard
goose flats were used to work into this ebauche layer. dling. Total time spent on this painting was about 6 hours.
edges where I feel the work calls for them.