Witte Aalbessen (white berries)
September 7th, 2006
Here is a drawing of witte aalbessen that Hanneke van Oosterhout made this June (click the images to enlarge). The same day she transferred the drawing to a panel using tracing paper. Then she made an underpainting with acrylic.
The next day she over-painted all the berries with oil paint, a tiring day’s work. Why did she paint them all in one day? “Yes, the berries go away quickly,” says Hanneke. She wanted to capture the fresh, ripe quality of the fruit before the berries dried.
Some weeks later she over-painted the cup and the background in about half a day, again with oils. The result is shown here.
A detail shows the spontaneous but refined brushwork used to paint the berries — the shiny transparent skin and translucent interior. “That is the magic of these white berries, that you can look inside,” says Hanneke. “That’s why I worked so hard to paint them when they were fresh.” On the panel each berry is about 7 mm wide.
Two and a half days work is fast for a detailed painting like this. But is the picture in finished? You decide.
September 8th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
For my part, the painting is obviously unfinished. We can see three levels in the painting:
1) The berries, which held a deep and urgent importance to the painter,
2) The cup, which is painted with care, but lacks the hard material quality of ceramics, as opposed to the delicate organic quality of the fruit.
3) The base, which is without detail and somewhat crude.
A painting need not be uniform in its degree of finish of course. But for this picture, the levels of finish correspond too closely with the actual objects, and this causes the painting to lack unity. The solution would seem to be for the artist to look for something in the cup that is special, and in the base/table top as well. I think a few touches would suffice, if they are chosen with care. We will follow this painting.
September 9th, 2006 at 7:26 am
The berries are spectacular.
But I don’ t understand the process;
‘Then she made an underpainting with acrylic.’ Is this the black background?
‘The next day she painted all the berries with oil paint, a tiring day’s work. Why did she paint them all in one day? “Yes, the berries go away quickly,” says Hanneke. She wanted to capture the fresh, ripe quality of the fruit before the berries dried.” I don’ t understand this at all.
Looking at the berries, I see several colors, the orange seeds inside, the white translucent skin and the reddish furry tops. Did she first paint the orange seeds inside? How long did the oil paint have to dry before she added the translucent white top layer?
September 9th, 2006 at 7:28 am
Hi Ossi,
The underpainting is a somewhat rough painting of the complete scene. Unfortunately there is no photo of it for this picture. Hanneke will answer your other questions.
September 10th, 2006 at 10:03 pm
I painted the berries in oil paint in one session. The reason that I wanted to do it in one day is that I was afraid that the berries would be dried out the next day, which was not the case but they had gotten sort of milky so I could not see through them anymore and thus could not see the seeds anymore.
I don’t remember exactly how I painted the berries but I did it all in one day so I started with the seeds and painted the reflections over them while the paint was wet. In the underpainting the berries where not more than a little circle filled with some warm grayish yellowish color if I remember it well.