Pattypan at Dusk

Oil on prepared board.
I worked on this piece at dusk- placing the white squash on a white table cloth. Due to the quality of light in the studio, neither of course looked white. This painting changes under bright lights: The colors look intense, almost garish- not pewterish, as the squash appeared to me, barely visible in the wanning light and as the painting itself appears under natural light, or with distance. It becomes three dimensional, more real, in waning light.
I must have seen those colors- squinting in the dimly lit room. They must have been there, but were not easily distinguished. Or else they wouldn't blend as they do to create the effect that I saw when the light is the same as it was.