The Last Notes on Glass- at Least for Now

This is the last in our 2 month study of glass. Scroll down to recap most of the "GLASS" posts.
Everyone in class is more confident and certainly more competent in an area that seems to mystify beginners. The basics: a key to glass is CLARITY; you have to be able to see through it for it to read as glass, and
Strong, hard highlights and strong, hard accents (the darkest marks) are key to communicating the hardness of glass.

Painting Cut Glass

Well, unlike any other kind of glass - cut glass is not clear but it does share with all glass some specific qualities, those being the hard, strong highlights and hard, dark accents. This is where standing by your method will be the only thing that saves you. Go for the SHAPES- and in this case I first painted the little pitcher as a mid-value shape, then broke up that shape into smaller shapes of light and dark, leaving room, value wise for brighter highlights and darker accents. The colored brush on the inside of the pitcher is used as device to hint at some clarity characteristic of glass; and I faked it a bit to better communicate. The red I actually saw was very obtuse. Here, I fall back on my first rule of any still life: it has to communicate to the viewer. The short hits of red suggest that the pitcher has some clarity (as opposed to being opaque) and that the brush inside extends to the bottom.
In class, we all agreed that cut glass was the hardest subject in the glass category; the brush was fun tho'.

Class Notes on Painting Glass

We just have 2 more class sessions in our study of glass. This is a pretty terse 16"x12" and I am painting on my favorite ground - a scraped down canvas; the remains of maybe 10 scraped off paintings. It is the only way to give the canvas that wonderful crapped out look; almost a shame to cover it up.
Our little green apple makes an appearance but only as a subordinate; having an item BEHIND the glass object helps show clarity, especially if the background is ambiguous.
Though it has nothing to do with glass, I would note the brushes inside of the mug. It seems obvious that they would have to rest on the rim and as well, go to the bottom; sometimes this is lost on the beginner (or some of us who can't make our brushes straight). Any straight item, be it a brush, pencil, stick, flower stem cannot stand on its own but must rest on the rim and (allowing for a bit of glass distortion) must also follow a straight path all the way to the bottom of the container. So check that angle in the drawing before heading to paint.