Now that winter is officially with us, outdoor painting is somewhat limited for those of us in the Northern climes.

And that means you’ll be scrounging around for items to include in your still life compositions for the next few months.

If you’re like me, you probably have an assortment of vases, bowls and stemware you’ve acquired over the years.

These can be great pieces to include in a still life that will challenge you and perhaps help you change the way you look at your subjects.

Painting Transparency

Painting transparent items like glass vases and cut crystal goblets is a challenge that many artists avoid like the plague. Creating the appearance of transparency seems like a daunting task until you’ve tried and practiced the techniques.

The painting process isn’t any different than rendering any other object. The real trick is in how you observe and capture what you see.

Observation Is The Key

When you study an object you want to paint, you look at the form, local color, shadows and shading. You observe how the components or parts of the subject fit together. You compare the size in relation to other parts of the composition.

When you’re painting a clear object, you need to be extra observant. You’re not so much looking at the color, or lack thereof, of the item. You’re observing what you’re seeing through the object and the colors and shapes of the reflections in the glass.

You’ll find a lot of contrast, more lights, more darks and complex color arrangements. You’ll probably find more detail in the clear item than in opaque subjects.

Piecing Together Cut Crystal Subjects

Once you’ve developed your model’s outline in the composition, it’s time to start filling in the blanks to create a convincing, three-dimensional shape.

If you’re painting a cut crystal object, your shapes will be mainly geometric in nature. Get those shapes laid out on the surface of the glass. Observing these facets and how they are positioned on the surface, you’ll notice there is a lot of contrast between the planes of the intricate cutwork.

Once you’ve determined the tones for the various planes, paint in the shapes and your cut glass will come to life. You’re also looking for reflected local color. On the flat areas of the piece, you may find shapes of things behind it showing through.

Painting Smooth Glass Shapes

While cut crystal has lots of geometric shapes, painting a realistic smooth glass container uses distorted shapes and variances of what one sees through the vessel. You’ll also find lots of reflected local color from the things around it.

Training your brain to observe the colors, lights and darks as patterns within the subject. Don’t observe the thing as a whole. Just focus on putting the little pieces together like a puzzle. If you draw the pieces correctly and use the right amount of light and dark contrasts, you’re sure to wind up with a good representation of a transparent container.

A Word About Highlights

The bright highlights you see reflected on an object are on the surface of the glass. This means that the reflections are superimposed across anything that is behind it. The highlight will also follow the contour of the container.

You’ll find these tips work with any medium. Whether you’re painting in watercolor, oil, acrylic or using colored pencils or pastels, the technique is the same. It’s more a matter of keen observation and focusing on what you actually see, rather than what you think you see.

Don’t let your brain overthink this transparency thing. Just start practicing and your mind will eventually get the hang of it.