Exploration of a Sphere Part 5: Painting the Sphere

Yesterday I discussed kinds of edges.  Now we will discuss how I actually painted the sphere.  I try not to torture my students (too much), so I generally let them trace a circle.  I want them to learn to control the paint, values, and edges, not be stressed about drawing a perfect circle.  It turns out that the line disappears under the paint so quickly that they wind up having to paint a perfect circle anyway, but letting them trace one takes some stress out of the start. 

In his Lives of the Artists, Vasari relates the following story:

This courtier, coming in order to see Giotto and to hear what other masters there were in Florence excellent in painting and in mosaic, talked to many masters in Siena. Then, having received drawings from them, he came to Florence, and having gone into the shop of Giotto, who was working, declared to him the mind of the Pope and in what way it was proposed to make use of his labour, and at last asked him for some little drawing, to the end that he might send it to His Holiness. Giotto, who was most courteous, took a paper, and on that, with a brush dipped in red, holding his arm fast against his side in order to make a compass, with a turn of the hand he made a circle, so true in proportion and circumference that to behold it was a marvel ... Wherefore the Pope and many courtiers that were versed in the arts recognized by this how much Giotto surpassed in excellence all the other painters of his time.

Apparently people practice perfect circles as a hobby:



Link to original video.  Pretty cool.  Anyway, back to our circle.

I first did an underpainting in raw umber thinned with turpenoid.  You can still see the underpainting in the background and the reflected light at around 5 o'clock on the sphere.  Notice how the color of the thinned raw umber leans towards a warm yellowish.  I then used raw umber mixed with zinc white to do the modeling on the sphere and a bit in the background.  Notice how the white cools the raw umber and it takes on a grayish bluish cast.  When painting I paid attention to the light, especially the core shadow and reflected light, the cast shadow, and the edges.