Painting process of Velazquez Still Life

Aug 17, 2019 | Art, Oil painting, Painting process, Still Life, Workshops

Velazquez 5

Materials used:

 

  • Daler Rowney System 3 Acrylic pad. A3
  • Daler Rowney System 3 Acrylic paints: Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Ultramarine Blue, Crimson Red, Sap Green, Burnt Umber and Titanium White
  • Brushes; Synthetic round acrylic brush 1, 4
    Synthetic flat acrylic brush 8 & 1/2″ filbert

 

The Composition

Key to my composition was the cardboard figure of Infante Margarita taken from Velazquez’s famous painting ‘Las Meninas’ painted in King Philip IV of Spain’s court in the 17th century. In ‘Las Meninas’ the infante is central to the composition but here I decided to place her at the left edge and instead placed a book on Velzaquez as the central object.  Velzaquez manges to place himself centrally in the painting by putting in a mirror reflecting him painting the portrait.

I hung a dark maroon fabric on the wall and laid a white cloth on a box to create a setting for my objects. I wanted to keep the other objects pale so selected a white tea cup and saucer and a white vase with some white peonies, after considering the composition I then added a blue peony to balance against the blue of the vase design. When arranging objects it usually comes down to what I find pleasing and I will try a number of different arrangements before settling on the final one. If you look at the rule of thirds then I have placed the table and cloth in the lower third of the picture, all the items in the middle third and centre, then the flowers in the top third of the composition.

Tonal Underpainting

I start by doing a tonal underpainting using a limited palette of; yellow ochre, ultramarine blue and titanium white and use one of the larger flat brushes so that I cover the areas more quickly and don’t get caught up in too much detail.  The tonal painting also helps to define the contrasts at an early stage and it is these contrasts that will give depth to your image, they get strengthen at a later stage.  If you add too much colour at an early stage it can also be harder to see these contrasts.

Deepen the contrasts and add colour

Once I have painted in all of the objects and flowers, I painted in the dark background mixing crimson red with the ultramarine blue.  Now working with the round brushes I start to refine my painting of each of the objects.  In the underpainting I created the light areas by adding yellow ochre to the titanium white but now I add a small amount of cadmium yellow which warms up the pale whites.

With each of the objects I focus on where the shadows are to give the objects form.  The book that I painted in green by mixing the ultramarine blue with yellow ochre I now add a little sap green to give more warmth and add a small amount of burnt umber to create the dark shadow of the vase against the book. I tend to work in layers with acrylics constantly looking to strengthen my darker tones and then look at which are the lightest areas in the painting and keep adding highlights to those areas.  Top tip: make sure you step away from your work at intervals as this can really help to see how different parts of the painting are working and what needs more work.
I hope that you enjoy the painting, above I have included an image of Velazquez’s painting for you to see where the inspiration for my still life came from.  Please feel free to leave comments or ask any questions.  If you are interested in attending one of my painting workshops then please go to my Workshops page.