Page 36 - The Decorative Painter Winter 2017

STEP 5: Streak the bowl with washes of diluted Sable Brown, Traditional Burnt Sienna, and Honey Brown. Use Burnt Umber, as well, inside the bowl.
STEP 6: Transfer the stripes. Check the transferred lines for symmetry before painting them. Use Navy Blue and a liner brush. Don’t sweat the stripes. The bowl is old and imperfect. It will actually look funny if you get the stripes too perfect. Besides, most of them (especially the sides) are covered in the next steps by glazing. (See Step 4 of the Step-by-Steps on page 33.)
STEP 7: Check for symmetry. Is the bowl’s rim the same height on both sides? Are the stripes at the same curve and height on both the right and left sides? Does the inside of the bowl turn with a graceful curve (and not a point)? Are both curves the same? Clean up background, near edges, with Lamp (Ebony) Black and let dry completely.
BOWL – STAGE 2
STEP 8: Have, at the ready, your hair dryer, mop brushes, and a clean flat brush. Mix about 1 tablespoon glazing medium and 3-5 drops of Lamp (Ebony) Black in a small clean container. Stir well.
STEP 9: Sideload a large flat and, starting on the black background, paint the glaze on the right side of the bowl. Work inward, using less and less pressure. Use slip-slap strokes and work the brush inward on the bowl with- out reloading until there is no more glaze showing. The shadow only extends in from the right to the edge of the biscuit cutter. Make sure that there are no hard edges where the glaze ends. Repeat on the left side of the bowl (covering about one third of the bowl) and the right side of the inner bowl. Let dry. (See Step 5 of the Step-by- Steps on page 33.)
STEP 10: Glaze in the shadow cast by the biscuit cutter onto the bowl. It is wider as it approaches the table be- cause of the angle at which the light hits the biscuit cutter and the shape of the bowl. This shadow has a subtle edge and is not blended out like the two sides in Steps 7 and 8 on page 33.
STEP 11: Redo highlights inside the bowl and along the top edge of the rim, and anywhere else as needed. I always seem to lose them with glazing. So, why did I put them in before, knowing they’d be lost? It creates more depth hav- ing them both below and above the glaze. Accent two (2) highlights ONLY with Snow (Titanium) White: the bright highlight inside the bowl to the left and a tiny bit of the imperfection highlight along the top of rim on the right. (See Step 6 of the Step-by-Steps on page 33.)
BUTTER MOLD
A butter mold has a plunger that is pushed downward to impress a design into the butter. For painting purposes, think of the butter mold as a bunch of upside-down wood- en bowls and bowl rims stacked on top of one another. If you learn to break objects down into shapes, they will be easier to paint. Each ring is darkest on the left, because the light is coming from the right. Each has a highlight that is about one-third in from the right (same as the bowl). The highlights are soft and defused because it is made of wood. Brush strokes are vertical to simulate wood grain. Highlights and blending are soft to mimic age and wear. STEP 12: The knob is like an inverted bowl. Basecoat the knob with Sable Brown. The very edge is Raw Umber and the back right turning edge is Burnt Umber. The highlight is a tiny triangle of Mocha in the same approximate loca- tion as the highlight on the bowl. A second and smaller highlight is placed inside the Mocha with Grey Sky. The tiny divot (near but not on the top of the knob) is painted with diluted Lamp (Ebony) Black. The knob’s back left edge is shaded with Bittersweet Chocolate.
STEP 13: The plunger stem is painted with Burnt Umber. The shadow beneath the knob is Bittersweet Chocolate. The stem is shaded with Bittersweet Chocolate on the left and highlighted with Mocha and then Grey Sky, applied while the Burnt Umber is still wet. This keeps the highlight soft. STEP 14: Paint each section completely, before going onto the next. Basecoat the top surface of the butter mold with Burnt Umber. Shade behind the stem with Raw Um- ber and put a small section of Bittersweet Chocolate on the far left side. Paint along the edge of its rim with Mocha. There is a tiny crescent of Grey Sky just in front of the stem (reflected color).
STEP 15: Basecoat the lower three rings with Burnt Um- ber, finishing each before proceeding onto the next. Shade to the left side with Bittersweet Chocolate; the top turning edge on the right is Raw Umber. The dividing line between each section is painted with the edge of your flat brush and Bittersweet Chocolate. Bittersweet Chocolate is also used to darken the bottom of the lower ring (to make it turn) and some darker wood grain on the right turning edge of the uppermost ring. Wash over the butter mold in a few areas near the center with diluted Traditional Burnt Sienna to warm the wood so it glows with wear.
STEP 16: The highlights on each of the rings are each created in two steps: (1) warm the general area with Sable Brown (not shown on Color Placement Map), and (2) us- ing a liner brush and a tiny amount of Grey Sky or Mocha or both, lay in some short vertical strokes (think wood
34 The Decorative Painter • WINTER 2017
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