Classical still life

Recently I have been getting interested in the old Dutch still life paintings and my latest painting is in a similar vein. I couldn't get a very good picture of it, its a bit brighter than shown.

The old glazed pot I got on Ebay for 5 pence plus postage, which the seller underestimated, so he actually paid for me to have it!

I painted just the jug and plum first, but then I couldn't picture how they would look against different darknesses of background. So I had an idea and scanned the jug and plum into photoshop and tried various backgrounds on the computer first to see which looked best, and found a graduated background looked better than a solid colour. So then I painted all the background in around the items the painting suddenly came to life.

'Glazed jug and plum' Oil on canvas 24x30cm

Glass Jugs

Here is a painting I recently finished of two glass jugs I'd found in charity shops.

It is the first painting where I have started using mediums. I used Robersons medium on one jug and Liquin on the other. Robersons is a very thin medium, and dried very quickly! Too quickly for me I think. Liquin is a thicker medium, and was nice to use.

I was pleased with the transparent effect I got with the mediums, but I think with clear glass I will use a darker background next time so it shows up better!

For this painting I am trying an oil based primed extra fine textured linen canvas for the first time. I wanted to try it as I'd heard that oil based primer is much easier to paint on than water based gesso as it is less absorbant. It was and I liked it, but didn't find the difference was that huge.

'Glass Jugs' 30x40cm Oil on Linen.