Tea Kettle and Books

This was for the April 2010 Rookie Painter challenge. The reference picture actually got good composition, I thought, so I painted the picture as is. It's oil on 10"x12" canvas board.

I spent more time painting the tea kettle, which is basically a reflection of the scene around it. It used the mixture of ivory black, burnt umber, and ultramarine blue to make black, and kept taking out half of the mixture and adding in white. I ended up with about 12 shades of grey, plus black and white, and painted the kettle with number 1 and 2 brushes. I also found that painting the straight edges for the books to be very challenging, free handed and making sure my hands were not shaking! I kept out all the book titles since those would distract from the tea kettle, and I kept the books not too painted so the focus can be on the tea kettle.