This week we bring you a stage by stage painting from Wanda Cox. If you’ve ever wanted to be in the studio as an artist works, here’s your chance- minus the numerous hours! In this installment, Wanda Cox is rendering one of her favorite subjects, Ball Mason Jars and the ubiquitous southern crop, cotton. Both items are considered challenging to artists as the glass fractures and warps the light, and the cotton is both hard edges stem and fluffy, translucent fiber. Wanda approaches the subject with her technique of watercolor on canvas, layering value and color, merging one into the next, to achieve a work that conveys both subjects with equal mastery.
She begins with a layer of black, developing the shadows and forms without the trouble of color. This technique is referred to as a ‘grisaille’. Further layers of color can then be applied with a master plan visible beneath that sets the edges and tones of shadow and light. The white-est areas are often left bare at first to be addressed later with subtle, blended variations of tinted color.
