At the moment I am concentrating on Still Life subjects as with 100f weather outside, indoor work is the only viable option. Drummer will a series of 3 with a different character for each painting but with the same background. It will be interesting to see how different the pictures will appears with the same background. Presumably, although the colours of the background will be similar, the tone will be different due the colour of the ornament. Any way here is the finished Drummer Whilst working on the drummer, I was looking up info on different palettes and different coloured grounds to start with. The typical ground to start with is a brownish one with burnt Umber and white mixed together.  However, I came across a painter who used black with a very limited palette – 6 colours plus white.  This suited my plans as one of my problems with Drummer was my control over tone- often I just ended up with mud.  So using the black ground and a limited palette , I worked on the following paintings.

My first mistake with both paintings – they were too small!   The bird is about 6×4 and vase with flowers ,is about 8×6.  Just because the subject matter is small, I have learnt, don’t assume you need a small work surface.  It made me way too fussy, getting lost in the detail and not seeing the whole.  That is why the vase is still floating in the air.

I liked working on these though as working black on black, I really had  to work hard to define the objects and think about the tones.  I don’t think I was completely successful but I was close.  Hopefully the next in the drummer series, will be more successful.