My Latest Stuffed Animal Still Life

"Trash Panda"
11" x 14"
Oil on canvas
2017

Greetings and salutations Everyone!

In this post I decided I would like to share and discuss my latest still life painting. These past few months I must admit that I’ve been finding myself especially intrigued with the idea of depicting the backgrounds within my paintings with slightly emphasized color in relation to darker valued subject matter with muted chroma. From a compositional perspective, I would say that in placement of the extremely polarized value shapes create an effect with the objects edges as they recede into space and in which I immensely enjoy tinkering with.

As far as the painting’s construction is concerned, I would say that I approached it in a very similar fashion as I described in my last still life painting (orange hammer) blog post. Once again instead of beginning with a transfer drawing and sealing it with ink, I started with a generalized constructive drawing in paint directly on the canvas with thinned out raw umber. After figuring out how I wanted the large shapes of the raccoon placed, I began to thinly mass in the shadow shapes and refine the drawing. Now that the drawing is complete, I began massing in the head with color and slowly breaking down the forms as I generally moved from the right and to the left on the painting. I began working on the background as well as its edges where it meets the top of the stuffed animal at the same time.

The palette I used for this painting was titanium white, quinacridone rose, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, and raw umber. Of course due to the earth pigments used (burnt sienna and raw umber) naturally I would expect there to be some sinking in, so after I completed my initial pass, I eventually oiled out and began the last pass starting on the right and moving across to the left, refining and touching up details as needed. I would say that I have been reasonably content with the brand of canvas panels I have been using lately as they haven’t been too absorbent.

Please feel free to let me know what you think? And if you’re interested in a more in depth analysis or explanation as to how I work and was taught, please check out some of my previous posts.

Thanks for reading Everyone!

-James Hansen
https://jameszenartist.weebly.com/