Today I'm posting the finished product of a 3-day painting. Read up from the bottom of December 11 to see the painting evolve. You can also watch an animation of the painting.
For the final few hours of the painting I tinkered with the fruit. I ended up peeling another mandarin for the curl of peel; the one I was using before completely withered over the last couple days. The fruit in the bowl now have solid round forms, and all the colors are deep and saturated.
I also made some final refinements to the peeled fruit in the foreground. I added some contrasting light and darks, and I emphasize the orange glow of light shining through the single slice in front.
In this phase I concentrated on the background and the butcher block surface. I glazed the whole backdrop darker; the pattern detail I'd thought about including seemed distracting. I also decided the cutting board was too warm, so I completely repainted it in cooler colors and added more detail of the wood grain and knots. I think the cool color better captures the feeling of the winter light, and makes the orange fruit really pop. I also refined the bowl in this phase, adjusting the reflections and subtleties, and deepening the shadow, giving it a blue cast on the edges. I decided to remove the piece of rind to the right of the bowl as it was cluttering the composition.