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

My Haystack

Artists always enjoy revisiting a familiar scene or subject. Finding new ways to look at and express the themes within the familiar subject. I always think of Monet's countless haystacks when I think of this. (Can't think how many of those I've seen over the years, but a lot - and all beautiful).

Possibly my version of this, is going back to old paintings and their reference material and doing new versions of them. The 1st version of this painting was painted in '08 I think and it sold long ago. This is my second version of that set up. I wonder how many more I will produce in my painting life time? I know what I'd do the next time I painted it too!

The green group revisited
24X36               Acrylic on board

The original had a very cool tone to it with strong blues and lots of greens, I've kept faithful to that. Though I wanted to readdress the balance of the painting, (the original had all plants and vases, pushed to the left hand side), so I moved one of the plants to the other side of the table. An artist should always be moving things within their view, to strength the paintings composition. When I teach workshops I encourage artists to stand slightly 'off view', or slightly misplace their still life objects. This forces them to think and move elements within their composition. This process I feel keeps the art fluid and avoids us getting to lazy. Composition is so important to get right, we need to always be aware of it!


* I know I should have posted an image of the original painting here too. But I wanted the new work to stand on it's own merits and not be simply compared to it's counterpart.

Segments on Purple

There's something I love about purple tablecloths or drapes in still life paintings. I think it's a great color for setting of other things around it. Here it really makes the oranges and lemons on the table pop! Both complimenting and resonating.

I'm also very fond of the handling of the red drape on the side and that top of a chair (shown as a white dome/curve). The chair is intentionally painted here as a very abstract form, but the shape and color placement does everything needed to make that part of the painting work!

Segments on purple
36X36
Acrylic on wood

Included a couple of details below since they give the usual combinations of showing detailed color and brush work, as well as my distinctive flecks of under painting.
 

 detail

 detail

Catching up.

Here's a couple of newish paintings to see in the New Year.  I posted them on facebook, but didn't manage to pin them up here. So here they are now; better late than never (with a few more comments too).

 Fall Fauve color
Size 24X36              Acrylic on board

  Usually I hate those landscape paintings with 'overt' red foliage; but here I just went for it. I channeled those expressionist fauves and went with the red!  I think it worked out pretty well. I love this location near where I live, two fields meet a small stream. Some farmer long ago must have had the foresight to plant a line of trees on either side and the effect with reflections is stunning.

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 Resonance on blue
Size 18X24              Acrylic on board

Smaller than much of my work. It's nice to tackle something this size now and again. It allows you to paint faster and quicker. I enjoyed being reserved about the color range. The green flower stems create a strong color bridge for the lemons and pears to work within the color composition. The Oranges lead the eye with their color in a sea of blues.

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This one was the 1st fully finished painting of the year, but lots more in the pipe coming soon...... 

Orchids over Persimmons & Apricots on red
Size  44X36          Acrylic on wood 

I love balancing the warm table arrangement with cool colors over head, it creates a strong 'ying yang' color contrast, that creates stimulation and play for the eye.
 

(detail)

The detail doesn't add much, but gives a feel for how I treat content up close. You can see the under-painted pinks shining through the gaps in the cyan/blue. This makes for a fabulously impactful effect when seen in the flesh!
 

roosters.

 Something a little different here, last year I painted some goats I rather liked, (posted one of them at the bottom here). I wanted to do a painting in a similar style, so I worked up these chickens, well mostly roosters.

I think it's quite a succesfful painting though quite a departure stylisticyally from what I usually do. I played with a few ideas on the background but settled on this lighter abstract effect, that balances well with the foreground.

Strutting
36X24           Acrylic on Board

Goats on green

36X24