SOLD

Original Oil Painting on Board

Size Framed: 43.5cm x 41.5cm

Price: SOLD

Colour and contrast using a blue bottle next to bright oranges was deliberate. On the colour wheel blue and orange are complementary and placing them side by side increases the intensity of each. I chose a deep, almost jewel-like blue for the bottle to emphasise the warmth of the fruit; the bottle’s cool reflective surfaces also allow small unexpected colour shifts to show — hints of orange catching in the glass, subtle greens from the leaves, and the reflected indigo of the cloth.

I worked with a single directional light to create drama and clarity. The highlights on the orange peels are sharp but soft-edged enough to read as natural; the leaves cast delicate, slightly translucent shadows that suggest volume. The bottle required careful observation: glass isn’t merely transparent, it’s a sequence of planes that refract and reflect the scene. Capturing both the bottle’s transparency and its own blue mass involved layered glazing and careful attention to reflected light.

A still-life like this invites exploration of surface. Oranges demand a tactile approach — tiny stippling and varied brushwork to suggest pores and sheen. Leaves are smoother and require crisp edges along the veins and softer transitions in the planes that curve away from the light. For the cloth, I used broad flowing strokes to suggest folds and creases.

For the bottle I used thin, transparent glazes over a more neutral underpainting to build depth. Highlights were added last with a clean confident touch; the small pinpoint highlight on the stopper and the crisp white edge along the glass edge are what sell the material as reflective and solid.

I kept the composition slightly asymmetrical: the clustered oranges balance against the vertical presence of the bottle, and the trailing leaves lead the eye across the canvas. The dark background removes distractions and creates that classical still-life feel — it’s almost as if the objects exist on a stage, spotlighted and paused.

Curaçao evokes travel and exotic citrus growth — an echo of the orange’s origin. When I found the blue bottle and learned that Curaçao was made with oranges it was a ‘no-brainer’ to combine them together with each colour complementing the other.