I couldn't wait to get to this painting! Lots of juicy color and lots of glistening detail - perfect! As always I started with a detailed drawing on 140# cold pressed Arches paper and reserved the lightest lights with Winsor & Newton colorless resist.
I laid in the wet in wet washes around the Ball jar first, trying to tie the large shapes together with soft edges between shapes.
Next I laid in the wet in wet washes in the Ball jar, indicating where the shadows and greens would be.
The wet on dry washes of darks and mid values were next. I had to lay in the darkest dark of the wine bottle label in order to correctly gage the rest of the values.
Beginning to add mid size details to the jar and bottle.
Restating the darks in the background and the back of the table.
After I removed the resist, I spent quite a lot of time cleaning up the reserved light shapes so they weren't ragged or 'out of bounds'. I apply the resist using a gutta applicator bottle with a #9 metal tip which I plug between applications with a corsage pin (find them here http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/1708-AA.shtml )
I think I will buy a few more bottles and try the #5 tip which should be finer and may save clean up time.
Finally I restated the darks in the background, greyed out the reflections in the foreground and darkened some of the finest details in the jar. Here's the finished piece, it's 9" x 14" and available $280 unframed or $480 framed.
