White of Way Painting

I'm primarily known as a colorist. But I tell my students one of my favorite value painting exercises is to paint white objects, whether in oil or watercolor.

For example, this is a quick 8 x 10 oil painting study of a white art smock that was hanging against a blackboard. Painting white objects on a white background is even more interesting, but here I couldn't resist painting the dark blackboard.

I will always be drawn to colorful, high chroma paintings but there's something very soothing about white subject matter. For some more of muted "white" still life paintings look at the work of Italian painter Giorgio Morandi. And here's another interesting blog post about painting white objects.