Still Life Binanza

18/02/2014

  I think its nearly finished. The table edge makes a big difference and while I'm a little uncertain about the pattern on the porcelain its as good as I can make it at this point.  I do, still, really like the angle and will do more from this perspective in the future.

13/02/14

  I'm trying to finish all the still life paintings which I've got going so that I can start with some new ones. I'm struggling with the pattern on the porcelain. Once that is complete, a few touches and I'll be ready to put it online and move it to the finish pile.

  The other one left to finish is the large dramatic still life I am dying to be rid of:

  

  Its garish, it hasn't got any texture and its quite quite horrible. I'm half tempted to get rid of the whole thing, but I'll give it one last go, attempt some drastic changes and then be rid of it. Its the orange maybe. 

 05/02/14

  I spent the morning trying to get the vegetables to brighten up yet no matter how much white and garishly bright colours I added onto the onions and potatoes it still looked dark and dull. Finally I cam e to terms with the fact that the red background was defeating any work I did on the foreground. The strong reds had been what I'd liked in the painting in the first place so it took a lot of half measures before I fully committed. I also employed a little Van Gough Still Life with the streaks and its working a lot better. Still needs a little more life but its nearly ready to go on my website and online galleries. Still lifes might be a little simple conceptually, at least the ones I'm doing are, but they are teaching me so  much about technique, mark making and tone.

   ON a side note photographing this was incredible easy. the painting wasn't straight but leasnt against the wall so the light it is straight. No reflecting at all. Might be the amount of texture in the paint but will try to photograph like this in future and see what happens. So long as the camera is also angled the squaring shouldn't be too hard either.

01/02/2014

IN the coming month I have no large competition to work for so I'm going to concentrate on working up a collection of still lifes which I hope will provide a good income. It will teach me mark making and tone, as well as testing what kind of quality I can create in fixed time frames and varied sizes. I want to create a few ten hour pieces, as well as a few twenty hour ones and prize them accordingly. I still have a lot to learn so it'll be a little unreliable at first but hopefully this will be good trainings.
  

 This is the work I'm playing with at the moment. Its half way through and although I like the composition I need to capture more textures with stronger lighting.
  What concerns me next is finding a varied subject matter that will engage me as well as the viewer. I want narrative and intensity here as well, and not loose all the conceptual aspects I place in my portraits and figure paintings.