Paint persimmons, a still life fruit demonstration.

The Flemish Technique using modern materials.

Paint Persimmons, a very sweet and maybe sour demonstration.  In this oil painting demonstration, I will show how, in six days, to complete a flemish oil painting technique painting. The main medium used to speed up the oil painting process was a dryer called Liquin.  More info on that at the bottom of the page.

Here is the reference photograph that we will use to paint persimmons.  As the reference is a landscape format, I've had to do a bit of cropping to fit this to the square board I'll be using.  I first needed to select a strong focal point, seeing the top most fruit, I made my decision and got started!

Here, I've gotten through the preliminary stages fairly far with the drawing, ink drawing, imprimatura and umber underlayer painting laid in.  I've also introduced white to help bump up these highlights quickly.

The top half of the view has been final blended where as the bottom half, the color are just layed in over the drawing with no blending yet.

A closeup of the brown under painting and thickly applied highlights.  An opaque white in the highlighted areas.

In the photo below, the final blending has been completed.  You can still see most of my drawing lines.  They remain visible to continue to give me a guide while painting the next layers.

We now start the dead layer with our mixture of gray paints.  The colors are laid in fairly loosely.

A closeup of the paint laid in.  Very loose, and "blocky" or blocked in.

On this photo, you can see some blending being done.  It is with a small brush that blends the paint on the canvas.  Usually in the direction on the contour, and attempting to keep all hard edges crisp, while at the same time, blending areas and need to have a smooth transition. 

It's difficult to show this in a photographic oil painting demonstration.  Video's really do describe the process so much better. 

Hopefully, I've captured enough data here for you to understand.

Below, the large and medium sized dry mop blending brush is used to smooth out any visible brush strokes.  This is also said to "hypnotize" or "set" the paint.  A close up view of one of the fruit. Notice too, that some of the brown warm under painting is showing through the gray paint.  After dry brush blending, (whcih lifts some of the paint as it softens, the underlying paint layer can peek through.  This is not a bad thing.

When you paint persimmons, like any other still life painting, at this stage of the process you are not trying to describe or depict any fine details or texture at this time.  I'm capturing the main tones, half tones, of shadows, etc.  This is primarily a modeling exercise in which you are describing to your viewers the shape of things you are painting.

A close up of the brushes used in this oil painting demonstration, with some of the paint that gets on each one.  This is wiped off using TP or lint free rags. 

I usually don't put them into thinner as the thinner, when the brush is re-applied to the canvas, will lift too much paint and actually wipe off what you are only trying to blend.

We now continue on to the color layers and finishing layer of this oil painting demonstration.

Click here to continue to part 2 of this oil painting demonstration!

Click here to head to top of paint persimmons demonstration.