paint it black // oil painting

In this painting, we had to setup a shiny black object. Mine was a tall coffee mug with 2 pool balls on the sides. I set it up with purple and yellow paper on the bottom and red as the background. The sheets of paper reflected onto the mug. The most difficult but fun part of my painting was making black without using black. My goals and intentions was to make the mug show the reflections. I accomplished them by making the set up so there would be reflections off of the mug and painting the mug with colors instead of black. I personally am not a fan of this painting but I don't think it is bad for my first oil painting. I do like the shadows from the pool balls. Something I have learned that I can bring to my next painting is to not spread the paint out so much and not to dab it.