Ala Prima Study

Here is a small ala prima sketch. Ala Prima means to paint the entire painting in one sitting, with no underpainting to speak of, and no sketching. The idea is to figure out the value (the relative light or dark or graytones), the hue (the color) and its temperature on the palette, then lay the stroke down on the canvas in one expressive stroke...no do-overs. It's harder than it looks!! You have to take into consideration what the stroke will look like sitting next to or on top of the paint already on the canvas. Things looks dramatically different on the pallet than they do on the canvas. Color reacts to its surroundings tremendously. I tried to push the color as well, because it was a white and aqua tea cup with an aqua interior on a beige cloth, and I love color. 6 x 4 oil, two hours, no mediums used.
What I learned: This method is saucy and is great fun to do. Learning to accurately see values is crucial. It uses a ton of paint. I won't be able to afford to do many paintings in this style, even though it suits my temperment because you can't be miserly with the paint.