Stargazing outside.

The life blood of still life paintings are the objects used, but the location you set these elements in is just as important. A surrounding ambiance can often be over looked as unimportant for a still life, but this element can have a dramatic impact on the final painting.

Occasionally I choose to do my compositions outside letting the light and temperatures of the day dictate tone and palettes. This painting was arranged and started on a sunny Californian winters day, the tone and light can be seen across the whole subject, giving it a very unique and unified ambiance, that's quite distinct from many of my 'indoor' paintings.

 Stargazing over pears and oranges
Acrylic on canvas     36X24

shocking with color

Usually my work is photographed with in-direct light / ambient light. Somehow this painting came out too dull so I tried a little direct light. Perhaps now it's a little too saturated, a little too powerful, and yet it's partly the painting? I chose to put strong colors together to create a reaction to create something with power. The painting grabs your attention and hopefully keeps it! 

Of course, what's always lost in a photograph but seen when viewing the original are the details;  the smaller fluctuation in the paint and color, these are the things that pull you into the work and give it it's depth to prolong it's enjoyment.

 Revisiting_an_old_friend
36X24    Acrylic on canvas

Two Tulips

It's confession time, these are the same Tulips. They actually originated as the white color, but I rememebred an old painting I'd made using yellow Tulips as very effective so I decided to rework them in the second arrangement. Without my admission no one would ever know and it supposrts my ethos of changing and adapting the scene before you to make the right expressive painting.

 Tulips with birds
36X24
Acrylic on board

Tulips on white table
18X36
Acrylic on wood

detail