Peppermint Candies #3 - Daily Painting by Darren Maurer

4" x 6"

My good friends Mick McGinty and Peter Yesis and I have had many discussions over the years about color and what color really means when painting. I have learned much about color from them and hopefully I have enlightened them both a few times on the subject as well. Trusting your eye and seeing the correct color is an important part of learning to paint realistically. When I sat down to paint this little still life of these peppermint candies they were on a grey background. In my set up the candies themselves looked warm grey but not quite as dark as the surface they were resting on. I had to make myself paint the candies grey when my brain knew they were really white. I kept going and painted what I saw. When the painting was about 75% finished the candies started to come forward and also began to fool my eye into thinking I was seeing white candies. I'm used to doing this because I paint a lot and have learned to trust what I see. I am thinking about color and color relationships between objects in my paintings throughout the entire process. A good lesson for a beginning painter is to not let your brain have preconceived notions about what color certain objects are. Really look close and decide what color you are seeing and go with it. This is painting 235 in my Painting A Day Series. Painting Sold.