Orange: working on edges

Orange, 6x6, oil on board

My husband remarked upon seeing this little study that it was in the style of Rembrandt. I appreciate that he would say that; I think it is the black background that gives it that feel, but to be in the Rembrandt style was not intentional. This is a Cara Cara orange that seems to be plentiful this year in the stores here in Denver. I had bought a bag at Costco and found this one with the stem still on it in the bag. Not something you see very often on store bought oranges and I felt it helped with visual interest. I used this as a warm up to the next assignment that will be "edges." I tend to paint rather hard-edged and on this study I tried very hard to avoid that. I have the orange fading into the background on both sides and softened the edge on the bottom . I think it helps that I painted on raw wood. The paint tends to not flow that well. You must be very direct to get the paint to stick. Pardon my finger print in the upper left hand corner. OOPS.

In this piece I was painting with the limited palette that is attributed to Anders Zorn, a Swedish painter from the early 1900s. The palette uses Yellow Ocher as Yellow, Red Cad Light, black and white. Black is used as the blue primary color. I have been fascinated with the range you can get using these three colors. I was pleased with the orange I got even if it was not as bright as it would have been using one of the cadmium yellows. It was a fun little exercise.