Demo of an outdoor still life with roses and melons done in pastel

Stage 1. I start with the underpainting and I use diluted oils. I put down basic local colors of objects, their sunlit and shaded parts. They are not either darks or lights, but local colors of objects, which can be of medium value. I will add darks and lights later with pastels.

Stage 2. I dilute the oils with more turp simplifying the shapes. I try not to be too dark, as the whole painting will look really dark, but make sure the surface of the paper is covered with paint, as the white of the paper may be distracting. I go for cool colors for the shades and warm colors for the sunlit parts of objects, the flowers, the vase and the cloth.

Stage 3. I keep on working on the flowers more and the vase adding specks of colors here and there. I work with pastels now and can be more detailed. I add cooler highlights to the flower petals, deepen the shaded parts of the stems and leaves and the cast shade. If I keep the shaded parts of melons warm the highlights on melons are cooler in color and lighter in values. I make sure all the colors I use are repeated in the painting here or there.

Here is the final version of the outdoor still life. I added more colors to the background, greens and violets and kept the red and yellow roses more saturated.