I'm trying to paint bolder colors and more clearly define darks and lights. In this painting, from a picture I took, I initially wanted to make the background completely black making the crayons really jump out. After I'd finished the crayons and the jar, I took a picture and played around with it in PhotoShop trying different backgrounds. The one I liked best was a dark gray-blue gradation from lower left to upper right.
This painting isn't loose, but certainly looser than I normally paint especially the colors and highlights in the jar.