Found My Lost Shaker of Salt

I did this little painting last Tuesday as a means to experiment. The sad reality is that I only took one painting class when I was in school and I never did too much painting from life, or in this case, salt. Early on I realized I needed photo reference and I got in the habit of just printing off pictures that I needed before painting. So I set up a little still life of salt and drapery and got busy painting.

A year ago or so I picked up a trick from an "old pro" and had just kind of filed it away with the other nonsensical information in my brain. What this old salt (pun intended) shared was that after he does his drawing on his board he'll touch it up with gouache before spray fixing it. So, I tried it. I did a little underpainting in gouache (mostly to identify the shadow shapes and patterns) then I spray fixed it and let it dry. Then I came back on top of that with oils.

I think the most impressive thing I learned was how thin I've been painting these days. Effectively I ended up just glazing over the gouache for some rich and luminous effects. I'll have to keep it up, I really enjoyed painting from life and having a loose and free underpainting to work with.

5x7. Oil on masonite. 1 hour.