When we bought our house, we were pleasantly surprised to find this vintage corkscrew hiding in a kitchen draw. Because it's the corkscrew I use every time I open a bottle of wine, I decided to pay homage to it in a painting. I've wanted to paint directly on wood for some time, but I was worried that it's almost impossible to correct any paint-stroke that goes astray.
For this painting, I made sure to have a precise drawing in pencil first. I measured the height and width of the actual corkscrew in order to make a life-size drawing. Then I drew a plumb line and centered the drawing on the line. Once the drawing was in place, I started to paint a base coat in titanium white mixed with mineral spirits. The base coat was applied only to the corkscrew part of the painting and not to it's cast shadow since I wanted the wood grain to show through the transparent shadow. The next day I started the initial lay-in of color. Stay tuned for the finished product.
