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I just shipped this one off to its new owner this week! A birthday gift for my stepmom, who requested that I just paint whatever I wanted. The only guideline she gave was that she didn’t want any cool colors, just a warm color scheme. It took me a while to figure out something that moved me. Then one day while eating some delicious mango gummi bears, I had found my subject. It also gave me an opportunity to practice a new texture with acrylic paint (oil is normally my medium of choice). I took the time to take a few pictures at the different stages, to show what I did.
No gummi bears were harmed during the creative process.
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The subject!
Started with an old, unused background that happened to match the color scheme my stepmom wanted. Used chalk to create a rough outline of the gummi bear, using simple angles. Then began applying transparent washes of a primary yellow+titanium white+cadmium orange mix to illustrate the areas of light.
Then I started to use transparent washes of Burnt Sienna+Cadmium Orange to block in the shadows. You can see that I started to shape the feet – I was trying to do that so I’d remember where to paint them later, but I was completely off!
Started to get more heavy handed at this stage, using thicker amounts of my yellow mix to build up the lighter areas. For the midtones I still used the yellow mix, but with a little less water than before and blended with the brown mix. I used the paint flatly on the surfaces facing up (face, belly, hands), and roughly blended the sides and the rounder areas. I messed up on the feet, so I had to keep repainting over the mistakes to help bring it back to something I felt good about.
For the details, I took a lot of liberties with simplifying. I didn’t think I needed to keep the “A” on its chest, and I didn’t care for the face so I went rouge with it. I added way more highlights than I saw, to help emphasize the juiciness and gelatin nature of the candy. I wasn’t too concerned about it being “perfect”, I just wanted it to look like a cute gummi bear! So the parts that looked uneven or more transparent didn’t hurt the overall look too much. I started feeling really close to finishing here.
Done! I took some diluted cadmium red light and applied it to some of the creases and rounded areas of the bear to help activate the painting with more color and help give the illusion of the bear showing through to the background. Added a few more highlights where I saw fit. Also tried to save the feet that I messed up! All in all, I’m happy with it. Looks like a mango gummi bear to me!
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