A Lonely Pinecone Painting ( 5” x 7” Alla Prima)

Greetings fellow Steemians!

In this post I wanted to share this little alla prima painting I finished last night of a pinecone that I found.

Unlike my previous post where my approach was more strategic and methodical, I ended up diving right in with this one with time definitely NOT on my side! Ha!

So at first I began with a generalized envelope (block in) of the pine cone with thinned burnt umber. I then started to mass in the predominantly sized shadow/dark shape “inside” the pinecone with the same umber. When I began to reach the outer edges of the shadow shape, I then started to increase the amount of burnt sienna relative to the burnt umber as those outer edges were comparatively “hotter”. I noticed that this gave the pinecone a sort of luminescence.

I then began to work on the background, but only on its edges where the edges of the pinecone started. For this I mixed up a quick value string of ivory black and titanium white as this would function as something to relatively function as something “cooler”, and therefore further recede into space creating some atmosphere.

Working my way up, I began to selectively render and sharpen the highlighted “protrusions” of the cone. I wanted to be selective in this as I wanted to continually guide the viewer’s eye throughout the cone.

After finishing the cone, I began to work in the cast shadow, ground plane, then massing in the rest of the background.

The palette for this painting was of course titanium white, cadmium red, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, burnt umber, and ivory black.

Please feel free to let me know what you think?

Thanks for reading Everyone!

-James Hansen
https://jameszenartist.weebly.com/