Perfume, a Pink Powder Puff...and a Lesson on Painting Glass

For this still life assignment, I had a hard time finding stuff around the house that was pretty enough to paint with watercolors. I wanted a still life that was high-key and colorful, and I eventually found just the right items in my makeup bag!

Lesson Learned: Clear glass reflects all colors around it! Do not paint clear class as a monochromatic object! At first glance, I thought I would just need to use a gray color in different values to paint the glass perfume bottle, but when I looked closer, I saw so many different colors in the glass. The glass picks up bits of all of the colors around it, as well as colors it creates when the light shines through it. Going into this painting, I had no idea that the clear glass would end up being the most colorful part of this painting!