I tried a little something different with the sketch for this one. After covering the canvas with a base coat of burnt umber, I opened a window and dipped the corner of a rag in turpentine to erase the light areas.

This was a huge mistake! I was just about knocked over by the smell of it and had to prematurely end my painting day so I could leave the room asap. I haven’t used any turpentine in nearly 3 months and I think I’ll definitely continue avoiding it.

I’ve been using walnut oil to clean my brushes since December. As I stated in my post on caring for brushes, there wasn’t much good information on the subject. So I’ve been using the last few months as a tail period. I plan on doing a post on the subject soon since I’ve been so happy with using walnut oil to clean and store my brushes.

Anyway, I really like how this painting turned out. My favorite part is how the under side of the top apple glows since the inside of the apple is semi translucent. Along the same vein, I love the red glow around the top edge and on the back apple, I love that you can see just how deep the light seeps.