The inspiration for this next painting, "Fish From A Can", comes from this vintage label, taken from a can of Salmon.

I mounted the label on a couple of cans and designed some wallpaper from the salmon image on the back of the can. My little chef notepad and pencil holder from the 1950's is mounted on the wall.

My brother in law, Paul, will again be my fly fisherman model.

I've positioned the fisherman inside the top of the can on the right, with him taking aim at the top inside of the can on the left. I'll paint the wallpaper first, establishing the values of the background so that I can determine what darkness will make the fisherman and cans of fish 'pop'.

The background is all painted in. I can already say that I will darken all the elements of the wallpaper when I apply the final layer of paint.

An olive green was the color of choice for the surface under the cans. Both the light struck areas and all the shadows have been indicated.

The note holder was fun to do. It has some subtle value changes in the yellow plastic.

Here's a look at the entire canvas.

I've begun to paint the can labels. Since both cans have the same label...

...I mixed up enought paint to work on both at the same time.

The overall red of the label is completed.

The can on the left is roughed in...

...as well as the can on the right.

The basics of the fisherman are brushed onto the linen canvas. At this point, it is obvious to me that there is not enough contrast between the fish on the wall (especially the light belly area of each fish) and the light that hits the fisherman's sleeves and hat.

In order to get an idea how dark the background needs to be painted on its final pass, I've darkened the belly of the fish that frames the light that hits his right arm. I'll go through and darken all the fish.

Although this photo is a little lighter than the one above, you can see that I have increased the value on all the light areas on each fish. This darker value is as dark as the first passage of brown on the wall. This tells me that the brown of the wall will have to get considerably darker to make the white areas on the fish look white (albeit in the shade).

I've increased the value of the brown area of the wall, which makes the fish pop out. This overall darker wall tells me how dark to paint the chef note holder to make it look correct.

Compare the chef note holder in this photo to the one above. I've darkened it proportionately to the value of the wall, making it 'sit back' in the shade.

I couldn't see the shape of the cast shadow on the front of the can from my original photos, so I put the can in the sun again today and took care of the lid's shadow.

With the shadow from the bent back lid defined, I've continued on and put the final coat of paint on the can. You can compare it with the photo above.

The can on the right is now finished and...

...with the counter shadows and warm green light struck areas filled in, the fisherman remains the only object left to paint.

Here's a close-up of the finished fly fisherman.

And here's the painting completed!