It was planned to be a quick sketch, but after no painting for some time I felt rusty and could not resolve my issues. This is small Letter/A4 size canvas.
This is still life with real models which were placed on the grayish paper instead of some darker background and I was painting at natural light by window (yay! Finally) and no shadow box and controlled light was used. This complicated things and took me almost 2 hours to finish.
Would you take a look please and think if I need to increase value of highlight? This is really bothering me and I am waiting when it dries to use pallet knife to make that nice and thick and tasty highlight.
@mbbriekner - thanks for your feedback! Really appreciate it. Indeed lighting was soft. Shadows were not pronounced at all. I tried to increase darkness of shadows already to make them 3D. Maybe this is what argues with highlight?
What is a shadow core? Something beneath of the apple?
A shadow core or core shadow is the darkest part of a sphere that receives the least directional light and the least reflected light from the surface under the object.
Here's a diagram: https://claralieu.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/sphere.jpg
Thanks! Agree with the shadow core, I saw it darker, but could not make it darker due to bunch of white I already incorporated and any dark was just getting muddy when I laid it on...
Thanks for the link!
@mbbrickner - main thing that I forgot without doing painting for quite long - Squinting eyes to see the value better and that what put me in the trouble really bad. It again proved me that initial blocking of dark areas with dark color is crucial.
A really excellent job! Value levels are so hard to judge well.
Fantastic work as usual. I haven't seen Voy around lately, is everything OK with him?
He is around, but less time. Garden starts. I know he reads comments and posts some comments from time to time and that he is very busy with other things.
He posted couple of celebratory achievements paintings we reached as community.
Thanks for your comment MHK! Appreciate it. You are very kind!
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Looks great! I don't know that I would make the highlight any brighter. Yes, it is a bit muted, but it suggests a diffused, softer light source. (Which could be the case via a window?) Perhaps the apple on the right could use a little more highlight, but I wouldn't add much — I like the subtly of it already. One thing you could try is to add more dark on the "shadow core" of the left apple. That could allow you to keep the highlights as they are. Looks great though!