Green Man Pumpkin - Part 13 - The Painting Begins

 Regular readers will know that I have recently been working on my carousel project.  I switch back and forth between the carousel and the pumpkin project to keep from getting burned out from working on them for so long. This week I am back on the Green Man Pumpkin project, and I have started painting the piece.

One of the art programs I watch on television repeatedly talks about covering the entire canvas with a base coat of the large shapes and then working to bring the values into line.  That lesson was really brought home when trying to paint this pumpkin.  It was impossible to tell what the right values would be when the entire pumpkin was bright white.  I had painted it with two coats of gesso to cover up the printed newspaper that I used for the paper mâché.  I wanted to make sure no words or pictures were showing through.

The photo on the left shows the base coat for the pumpkin and the pumpkin vine leaves.  Actually, this is the second coat.  I was having trouble getting the orange right.  For my first attempt, I had mixed Cad Orange and Burnt Umber.  That brand had a lot of red in it and the pumpkin looked too red orange.  For my second try I mixed Cad Orange and Burnt Sienna.  It was still not right.  After that I tried a test patch of Cad Orange and Cad Yellow.  It looked streaky.  I finally gave up and went 

to the craft store and bought their last bottle of Pumpkin Orange paint.  At first, I thought it looked a little flat but decided to live with it.  In retrospect, I think it was an improvement. You will see that color in the photos below.  

I have not finished painting the piece.  I have not yet added a base color to the face.  I decided to work on the pumpkin vine and leaves first to try to make some type of value decisions on the back first and save the face for last.

I wanted this piece to reflect the colors of leaves in autumn.  After all, that is when pumpkins are starting to ripen.  I painted the leaves a dark green basecoat, mixing Hunter Green and Dioxazine Purple.  It was really dark but covered the white well.  (You can see that in the first photo.)  Then I lightly brushed on a coat of Sap Green.  When that was dry, I started tapping in some Cad Orange mixed with Burnt Umber in spots here and there.  And finally tapped in some Cad Yellow Light in spots.  This is about as far as I have gone with the painting.  I may add some orange highlights to the leaves just to bring up the color a little bit more.  I will try it, but I don't want to add too much color because I don't want to compete with the face.

The vines for the pumpkin were base coated with Sap Green, then painted with a mixture of Sap Green and Burnt Umber.  I wish I had made the vines a little thinner, but it was hard to make them smaller with the paper mâché clay I was using.  I also painted the stump at the top of the pumpkin with the same mixture of Sap Green and Burnt Umber.  The stump of the vine is not finished yet.  I want to go in and add a lighter color to contrast with the greenish brown.  That color will probably be Burnt Sienna, but I have not tested it yet.

I have painted in some of the darker shadows on the face with the dark green/purple mixture I mentioned earlier.  The glass eyes are protected with some Press and Seal to protect them from getting paint on them.

Anyway, the painting is well underway.  In another week or two I will have this project completed.  It just depends on how much time I have to work on the project this week.  It seems like I have been working on it forever, but it has only been nine months.  I started this project in January of this year.  

Check back next week on Monday or Tuesday for the next post.  I try to have it ready for my readers on Monday, but sometimes life just gets too busy.