Would you like to take tea in the drawing room? Or in the painting room? The benefits of a good, strong, sugary underpainting cannot be overstated. Especially in this case, where I left a good deal of it showing through! Hence the muted hues. It was the patterned backdrop, you see. After about three hours of painting, I decided that getting overly descriptive would not improve the painting any, so I left it alone. That’s what you can see over in the upper corners -the warm greys of the underpainting. I also let the brushwork remain obvious.

The teapot is part of the dinner service my wife and I bought just after our wedding. It only gets brought out on special occasions, for example when there’s a visit from the Grand High Vizier of Pluto, or I sell a painting, which is perhaps why it has lasted longer than the rest of our  delph which has fallen victim to the children. These days, we eat en famille, directly from a burlap sack and drink from a hose attached to our neighbour’s outside tap.

Anyway, as usual, after the day’s painting I went into the garden for well-earned hosing of tea. And a bag of biscuits.

You can see a larger version by going to the ‘Buy Paintings’ gallery, here.

Oils on canvas. 14″ x 18″