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I found this "welcoming committee" (hence the title Welcome") at the doorstep of my neighbors -- a pretty arrangement of rusty pots and flowers that caught my eye. I could paint it from the comfort of my own open studio window, which I found to be very neat.

The ironwork of the table was so complicated that I took a photo and then made a grid on the canvas, in order to get the drawing right. The rest is drawn by hand.

I'm in the process of testing water soluble/mixable oils, and have bought only a few colors. A warm cad red, a cool rose red; a cad yellow and a lemon yellow; one magenta; plus french ultramarine, cobalt blue, and cerulean blue.  All other colors are mixed from these, plus zink white and titanium white.

To get a rusty orange, I mixed lemon yellow and magenta, and added tiny bits of other colors to get the exact nuance I wanted, for example. The objects and the doorstep all overlap each other in succession, which also helps create depth.

The structure of the painting

The idea was to make the objects stand out against the pale background in shadow as well as in light, almost as if the objects were silhouetted against the wall.

As usual, I started with an underpainting of pure colors. Following the fat on lean rule, I mixed the paint with a bit of water. The next day, I found that the underpainting had dried almost completely, and so it was easy to apply thicker paint on top of it. Below you see clearly where there is only underpainting, and where I have built up color (the wall and the door):

The challenge with the background was to make the pale blue of the wall different from the white of the door. For their shadow aspects I chose ultramarine for the blue wall, and cobalt blue for the door. In reality, these colors are optically mixed with strokes of violets, greens, and desaturated rusts too. Then I chose paler and warmer versions for the light areas.

In the next image, I have completed all the larger areas, having worked on depth and 3D. The next phase will be handling details, and adding flowers.

At this point, I notice that I have made an irritating mistake. The line of the table meets up with the cast shadow on the door, and together they form a long line that leads the eye out of the painting:

It took until the last stage of the painting to notice the mistake. It is funny how the brain works, as I know all too well that having lines line up is a no-no. I simply didn't see it, but I'm glad I caught it in time. So I fixed that and proceeded with flowers and details. The legs and scrolls of the table got different colors for what is nearer and what is further away. More blue and pale for what is in (an admittedly small) distance, and more red and contrast for what is nearer to the viewer. My point is that even when the depth in the painting is shallow, one can use the tricks for creating distance in an landscape to make a still life seem more 3D.

I use color first to create an illusion of roundness of objects, and value and chroma second. Take the watering can for example:

It started as two flat shapes showing light and shadow. In the middle image it is still flat, but I have adjusted the colors a bit, in preparation for the layers of paint that will give it the 3D look of the rightmost image. I put the warmest most intense red in the half-light (where shadow and light transition) in order to give the illusion of a rounded cylinder-shape.

The watering can was as intensely pinkish red as the flowers (and is meant to balance the flowers). However, when I mixed the reds, I was not satisfied with the result. To the right of the image below are the reds mixed with white zink white, and as you see they become greyed and rather dull:

The solution was to use a transparent painting medium, which allowed the color full chroma in thin glazed layers (left above). These were used for both the can and the flowers.

Below is the progress of the whole painting:

Click here to see a large version of the finished painting.

Between the two lakes, there is a rapid. Until the 1930s it was used to power small industries and manufactures. Today it is simply a beautiful spot where a trail crosses the stream. In the painting, we are standing just where the rapid begins behind us and to the left, but looking out over the upper lake.

In this painting, I tried something slightly different with "the green stuff". Most of the trees and grass are first painted in any color but green. Shadowy parts were underpainted with different violet tones, both more red and more blue ones. The lights got orange as a base. I then used other colors to shape form, and only towards the end did I grab for the green pastel sticks.

I strive to paint what I see with my eyes. However, where I live the light is such that greens in shadow are quite warmish and brighter than one would think, and greens in light are rather acidly bright. That doesn't work in a painting on the living room wall. Instead, I have to search for other colors within these greens, and when I find them I must push them even further when I put them down on paper or canvas. In this painting, I focused more on that than ever before. I really had to force myself to think "violets and blues for foliage in shadow" as a 'mantra' of sorts.

Another option would be to paint during cloudy days, as the grey light 'tames' the greens. Personally, I prefer the bright sunlight, as that brings out shapes and depth so much better. I guess I simply like the drama of sunlight against shadow -- it is eye-catching and provides contrast in chroma, value, and hue.