Exercise 6 Still life with natural objects

Since I did the tonal study on the white ground I have learned to blend edges more where I want to play them down in relation to edges in areas that I prefer to draw attention to. Though I used oils for this exercise, as opposed to acrylic in the tonal study, I have become more used to using acrylic retarder with acrylics which extends the drying time of the medium giving extra time for blending. I discovered these advantages when I did a painting for my daughter before Christmas.
For shadow areas, I am aware of a growing confidence in using touches, and sometimes entire mixes, of the objects complementaries on neighbouring surfaces, although not always successful I  seem to having less of a  problem working out a solution than previously - hopefully this will continue...(see also below - problems).
I completed the painting in a couple of sessions, so it meant I had to apply fresh paint over still wet layers below. Exercise 5 - Drawing in paint  - also in oils, entailed using the same method in places, but I don't think I was as successful there, as I made the mistake of painting over some areas which were starting to dry and this had the effect of causing the paint to sink, resulting in a comparatively dull looking surface. Whereas, on this occasion I was mindful not to make the same mistake and the result was more successful.
Nevertheless, I think partly due to the layers of wet paint I couldn't seem to obtain adequate contrast between the highlights and mid-tones even though I tried to use the brush with very light pressure at a low angle to canvas so as not to disturb the paint underneath, a certain amount of it did sink in, but the result was better than in Exercise 5, I think because the paint underneath was still workable. I will probably have more confidence to use the same method after doing this painting.

Another problem for me was with the cast shadows: I tried mixes of dark green and alizarin crimson for the garlic's cast shadows together with the garlic's complementary - purple which resulted in a muddy brown. I should have realised this would happen as the amounts of each complementary were too equal. So, I rubbed off as much as possible with a rag and tried dark green, with just a hint of crimson. Later I lightened the tone further with a paler mix of green which was less dominant and, I think, much easier on the eye. I definitely still have a long way to go but perhaps this will become second nature eventually. I think it was mainly a case of softening some of the tones with a lighter mix the effect was much less jarring than before. I have left the edge  of the green cloth at the back but I think this would also benefit from some softening of the edges.

Finished

Adjustments made later somehow didn't include the above mentioned idea of softening the rear edges of the green cloth. Re- the the right side of background cloth, I received comments in my tutor report that it misinforms and looks confusing due to overworking.  Yes I could see this fault on reflection; it did look too fussy, so I applied some mid-green, light cream and a small amount of dark green tones, blending them into the overworked area. I really concentrated on simplifying the myriad of dark little marks around the larger garlic. However, doing this caused it to look out of balance against the other green areas - the hues didn't exactly match with what was there. So I tentatively added some of the same colours to the rest of the cloth, including the front edge, which looked a sickly yellow beforehand, not picking up anything in the composition, looking as though it didn't belong. Once I had made these alterations it the back of the cloth appeared to fit in better. Hopefully I have changed the cloth area enough to make a difference for the better. I'm not sure if  I've done enough but I knew I could easily get carried away if I did much more, then regret it.