Continuing the Cocoa Set

 COCOA POT ON ARCHES

After shading the right side of the pot and cups, I began painting details. I used quinacridone gold on the rims. (you can make a similar shade with a warm yellow and a little orange or red). 

For the leaves, paint a light green over the leaf. Then drop in a darker green on the tops of the leaves, leaving the bottoms pale green. Let the greens blend wet-into-wet. Below you see where I've painted the leaf pale; then the next photo shows where I've dropped in a darker green.

Paint in the grapes using a violet color. You can make this with French ultramarine blue and magenta.

Then use quin gold and greens to paint the squiggly lines. Where you paint details over the darker shaded blues, your greens and golds will appear darker, which is fine. This is because of glazing.

Outline the gold rims with some green fine lines.

Below I've painted in the markings around the rims of gold. Then I strengthened the shadows on the cup handles and the pot handle. (used cobalt blue, sometimes with neutral tint to darken. But you can add purple or paynes gray to darken the blue a bit. )

I added some dark shadow inside the cups. Wet the inside of the cups. Apply dark color (French ultramarine with a bit of neutral tint) where the inside of the cup touches the rim. Lighten as you go toward the upper part, where it gets light and becomes white. If you get too much paint on it, dab it with a tissue to remove or lighten paint while it is wet.

TO CREATE A SHADOW underneath the pot and saucers: Wet the area beneath them with clean water. (remember, not puddly, just shiny) Start applying blue at the base of the saucer or pot. Where an object touches the surface (table, etc) is where the shadow is darkest and most distinct. Then let the paint flow out toward the outer part of the shadow. The outer shadow should be lighter and not as hard edged. While damp, I added some darker color (neutral tint or darker blue) to the darkest part of the shadow. 

This is as far as I've gotten with the picture. Next time, I'll talk about the finishing touches and how I fixed some of my mistakes.

FINISHING THE MASA PAPER POT

Using quinacridone gold, paint the rims of the cups, saucers, and pot.

Begin painting the details on the cups, saucers, and pot. See above for how to do the leaves.

Paint the swirls with quin gold. Grapes are a mix of ultramarine and magenta, but if you have a purple you like, use that. Darken the underneath part of the saucers. Outline with green around the edges of the gold rims.

 

For some reason the photo for the following won't load for me. But I'll figure it out and edit later.

Strenghten the shadows on the handles of the cups and the pot. Finish the design on the gold rims either with fine brush or pen.

To create the shadow beneath the objects, wet the area with clean water. Be sure to leave the hard edges of the objects dry. Then, starting where the object (cup, saucer, pot) touches the surface, apply dark blue paint with a bit of purple. The shadows should be darkest and sharpest where the objects meet the surface, more faded as you move away from that edge.

I also darkened the insides of the cups a little.