LOST MARBLES

(Click image to enlarge)

18" x 15" unframed

I had a photo of some marbles that I thought I might paint. The photo wasn't that good and I had trouble defining the composition and values. So I decided to take my own picture. But where to find the marbles? I ended up buying a bag of marbles from a local toy store. And although there was one bigger marble and about 25 smaller ones, they were all the same design.

I set up the photo so I'd have the size and shape of the marbles then changed the designs of the marbles when I drew the image on the watercolor paper. Originally I had the larger marble on top of the crayons at the mouth of the jar. But my "art director" felt it looked awkward so I moved it off to the left.

I realize that I've done crayons and jars before. I guess I can't get enough of them. In reality I wasn't confident enough in my ability to make the marbles realistic to make the composition just marbles. My next painting will be marbles only.

This was a tough painting to draw. Getting the marbles round without tracing an object took some work and I wasn't totally successful. Getting the crayons at the correct angle also took some time. And finally drawing the mouth of the Mason jar was difficult. I probably spent two hours drawing the entire composition.

In the end I was happy with how this turned out. I'm glad I "invented" the marble designs and made each different. I think a little highlighting gives the impression of glass. I added between 5-6 layers of paint on each of the crayons to get the color and intensity I wanted. Adding the black bands around each crayon makes a huge difference in defining the objects. I also am glad I left a lot of white space on this one and didn't try to fill in just for the sake of painting on paper.

I will be showing this painting and the ham sandwich painting at the 2007 Asian Celebration this weekend.