Hardwood Chisel Painting

This was one of those paintings that progressed nicely from start to finish.  I begin the artistic process with a really accurate drawing on paper, to scale compared to the actual size of my canvas.  I then transferred the drawing to the canvas and began painting.  The chisel had 3 materials that I needed to paint: wood, steel, and brass.  The combination of the three materials was one of the aspects I was originally drawn to when deciding to paint this tool.

I hadn’t painted brass in a long time and I quickly found out that raw sienna was the perfect base color from which to get started with.  The wooden handle of the chisel had a beautiful, rich finish to it.  Having some knowledge about wood finishes, stains, varnishes, etc.  I decided to use some glazing to convey the wooden part of the tool.  This indirect way of painting, via glazes, is more or less what gives the real handle it’s look anyway so it made sense to reproduce the effect with my oil paints on canvas.  Now that the painting is varnished the painted wooden handle has such depth and luminosity, much like the original tool!