Apricots draining in a stainless steel colander

The essence of this subject (to me) was the reflective nature of the stainless steel, the holes in it and the color of the just blanched apricots.

This painting was more complex than last week's nude, but has some similarities in the blending of the flesh of the apricots. I'd never painted apricots before, but have painted peaches, so I knew what to do there. I had never painted stainless steel before and that was a challenge, as I had expected. I started with the colander. I don't usually use a masking fluid, I try to save the whites by not painting there, but these holes were too small to paint around, so I used masking fluid. I usually use a bamboo skewer for this small stuff, but couldn't find one, so I sharpened my pencil and used the tip of it.

I used MaimeriBlu™ Ultramarine light and Daniel Smith™ Quinacridone Burnt Gold to mix the steel, once the fluid was dry enough. I used Daniel Smith™ Quinacridone Gold and Rhodonite Genuine and MaimeriBlu™ Orange Lake for the apricots and their reflections. I mixed the apricots on the paper buy making a puddle and dropping in the colors the tilting the paper until the colors blended. This was pretty much a wet mess by now. Time to back away from the painting. This is where I usually start another painting, but this time I went for a walk. This gave me time to think about what I wanted to do next. I was liking the colors of the apricots and the colander had a sense of roundness and reflectiveness, but wasn't there yet. I wasn't really sure what to do at that point, so I just jumped in with some darks and started defining the apricot layers and the reflections. That was when I decided I needed to paint in the area around the colander. I used MaimeriBlu™ Permanent Green Deep with the Burnt Gold and some of the Blue. It warmed it up and made the steel look colder. I then used that warm color to add contrast to my painting. When I removed the masking fluid, it came together. The holes defined what was reflected and what wasn't.
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