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Rosetta Stone Bookshelf in Casein (Process)

May 10, 2017

I was at Barnes & Noble the other day and did a casein painting of the Rosetta Stone shelf. I was interest in how the yellow, red, and blue accents contrasted against the dark tones of the book shelf. Here’s step by step on how I did it…

Start simple! — Pencil lay-in over a venetian red and yellow ochre casein ground.

Casein smells good... — Venetian red, raw umber, cobalt blue, yellow ochre, titanium white

blobs of color ready to be transformed into other blobs of color — All laid out on wet paper towel…

Still a ways to go... — Covering up the colored ground as best as I can. Casein dries lighter than it goes down, evidenced by the darks on the left side of the painting.

Opaques, hiding all your mistakes! — Changing the colors of the side of the bookshelf and adding in the blue parts. I go to the restroom around this time.

The fun part! — Detailing the boxes of the shelf

My sketchbook smelled very good after this was finished. — Finished. As you can see, I changed the background to contrast more with the orange/grey of the bookshelf.

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