Curmudgeon the Squirrel and 1st Painting

So this is Curmudgeon the Squirrel. Why I choose the name Curmudgeon, I don't know, it popped into my head as I was drawing him. To me it's ironic, because he's not curmudgeous at all. Quite cute, actually.

Here is my progroess on my Apple painting. You can see how I'm making an apple look round with different shades of red, orange and blue. Blue? Yes, there is blue on the dark side of the apple. It's interesting to learn about color theory. You don't just add black to a color to make it darker. On the light side of the apple it goes from white, yellow-white, yellow-orange, orange, orange-red, red, pure red. On the dark side of the apple it's red - dark red, and then adding in an increasing amount of a purple-blue.

10 more Apples to go!

Apple sketch - 1st painting

This is my sketch of the apples I will be painting.

Artists do (well they are supposed to) multiple sketches to "study" a painting. It's to help show the shading, focus, messaging. Sometimes you'll create a color study to see which colors will evoke the message you want or which colors will go best together. By the time you start painting you should have a very clear idea of what you're going to do. I'm finding that there's a lot of planning and preparation into painting one picture. Just when you thought artists were a bunch of spontaneous paint splashers.....