Grape Vine Study

I am working on grapes on the vine. I started with painting the background. I used Americana mustard seed acrylic. I used Createx illustration base and water to thin it out and painted the first layer using a rough pig's hair brush. I waited about half an hour to dry and then I used Winsor & Newton gold ochre, thinned out with Createx to create a darker pattern.

After waiting an hour for both layers to dry completely, I penciled in an outline of the grapes, stem and vine. With the grapes I started with the front layer. Randomly placing circles around the top. Then I worked on the second layer, drawing circles under the first layer. I worked my way down to the bottom of the bunch.

I next worked on the stem and and leaves making sure that the end of the stem was hidden with the leaf and grapes. I used ... well I was going to tell you what eraser I use, but my daughter has stolen all my erasers. There is no greater danger to your art than a seven year old. Beware.

Anyway, some artist use a light weight pencil to sketch in picture. I use a heavy weight so that the outline shows through the first layer of paint. I then use a good quality eraser to erase any mistakes or extra pencil marks.

One of the hardest things for me to do is get the right color. I used a picture of red wine grapes as a reference and experiment with Grumbacher ultramarine blue, Grumbacher thalo blue and Jo Sonja's French blue. I also used Grumbacher payne' gray to darken the right side.

Once I like the color, I decide position of the source of light. Many good artist can paint with several sources of light. Not me, I used one source. This is important in creating an illusion of dimensional perspective.

The first layer of paint on the grapes was almost all French blue. Once that dried, I worked on the shading colors. With acrylic you have to work very fast. There are extenders to lengthen drying time, but I found these slightly change the color. With oil you have up to three or four hours before the paint is set and up to one week before the drying takes place.

Not with acrylics. In a dry climate, like Vegas, you have about three to seven minutes before it is dry. Keeping the paint moist is essential and you have to mix the color in the bowl, with one brush and apply as quickly as possible. Acrylic reminds me of working in Adobe Illustrator. Decisions are made on the fly.

As you can see in the picture, I tried to vary the color of the grapes. On a few grapes I used, Craft Smart wine color. I don't usually like to use Craft Smart. The color is not very consistent and has a thin pigment count. However, the craft paints have much more variety than academy grade and I hate mixing.

The last layer is the reflexion of light. I decided to use white to create the illusion. I used Winsor & Newton mixing white instead of titanium white. Titanium tends to sit on top and is too prominent, where as the mixing white will blend into the existing color without changing it.

I used cheap white nylon brushes. I find nylon holds up to all texture of paint and easy to clean. Hair brushes will leave strands in the paint. Sometimes, I use pig hair brushes, if I want a rough texture. To fill in the gaps in shading I use Zig pigment ink. It is archival quality so it won't fade.

One reason I use acrylic instead of oil is that it is water-based, easy to mix and form and nontoxic. I only use paint from the USA, Europe and Australia. Paint made in China and other countries may contain toxic metals like lead and nickel.

Academy grade paint:

Jo Sonja's: French blue
Grumbacher: payne's gray, Thalo blue, Utramarine blue, mars black, mixing white
Winsor & Newton: dioxazine purple, gold ochre

Craft grade paint:

Americana: mustard seed
Craft Smart: wine