My first painting of 2021 is a rather complex cafe scene with dappled sunlight. Its based on photos I took in Salisbury in late Summer 2020. Here is how I created it...
As its so complex I resorted to breaking down the picture into a grid, so I could sketch out the rough positions. I do this in pencil, and usually I end up smudging it as I paint the background - so this time I painted the figure first. I started with the flesh colours, as these are easily tainted by other pigments. My recipe for flesh (Caucasian) is white with naples yellow and the merest touch of alizarin crimson. For shaded areas I add permanent mauve and a hint of burnt sienna.
Working in oils, the figures take quite a few days to dry, so I turn my attention to the background, working upside down where it helps. The complexity here is the dappled sunlight. The dapples don't have sharp edges (as the sun is not a point light source but a small disc), so I make sure I blend the edges of each spot.
The tree is a london plane. These have large leaves (hence the dappled light) and have patches of different colours on the bark as pieces are shed.
With the background more or less there, I delved into the tricky furniture with its diagonal legs. Its very easy to get this wrong. The foreground chair needed several attempts before I figured out what the problem was. I used yellow ochre, naples yellow, white and vandyke brown for the furniture, with a little cobalt blue on the table tops to show reflection of the sky.
After a lot of infilling with shades of grey (vandyke brown, cobalt blue, naples yellow and white), and the addition of leaves to the tree (mainly sap green), and a lot of tweaking, the final result is my first picture of the year - a scene I wouldn't have even tried tackling a year ago. Sit back and enjoy with your coffee, and if you've enjoyed this, feel free to buy me one too.
