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| My Acrylic Table With IPod |
Still life is not my favorite genre--actually, far from it. Yet I chose to do one to get the drift of alla prima, painting from life. I staged no set up. I painted my acrylic paint table just the way it is,in need of straightening. The spread of brushes and paint jars was too ambitious for a first attempt, but I kept painting till I ran off the 9 x 12 canvas. I let the composition be whatever it turned out to be. I did no predrawing--even with an oil wash. I just painted patches of color. This is the result.
Linda, I truly love it! It's just so simple and clean, and it looks like you had fun painting it, too, despite your antipathy towards still life.
ReplyDeleteYou used the right word 'antipathy.' Still lifes are dead. Stuff just sits there. But thank you. I did have a good time. I took my time for a while, then became a little looser, actually more like let's hurry this thing up and be done with it. That's really more my style. There's a lot of crap on that paint table--enough for a few more studies.
DeleteIt works. I don't think there is any "just" about it.
ReplyDeleteIt does work and was a great exercise for evaluating values/colors. I used the word 'just' to state I didn't do a damn thing to the things on that table to make the items more related to one another. What you see is really how it is.Exciting huh?
DeleteIt doesn't show that you don't like "still life". It works for me, it is lovely. I do like a simple still life, but I never have a fixed outcome. I do all the surroundings from what I think will suit, which is both fun and frustrating.
ReplyDeleteWhat I don't like about still lifes is the false arrangement of objects to make a pleasing composition. With this one, what is there is there as it was there. I didn't lift a finger.
DeleteThanks Roger. I appreciate that. All the time I was painting, I was wondering what are you doing? I was putting down color/value shapes alla prima.
This is a fascinating piece in that it exudes a spontaneity that shouts 'real'. The lack of artifice that troubles many still life pieces is totally absent here. Great placing of shapes. A very pleasing work.
ReplyDeleteThat was my trick. There was no placing of shapes. That's how my acrylics are stacked and how the pots of brushes are placed. I learned a lot about using my brushes and about muddying up shadows--but then I have found that a good mud is very important in a painting. Thanks Mick.
DeleteI love this unplanned painting! Loads of texture and nice patches of color - very arty! Great!
ReplyDeletexoxo
Thanks Vicki. Unplanned is the way I like to do them. Not in this case, but in many others. We often put things down that are totally unrelated and that's the subject for still life I find intriguing for it says, there's someone about who has a multitude of interests. Whoever lives in this space is interesting. thank you for commenting.
DeleteAnd a great result it is!
ReplyDeleteMuch fun, great color, movement, nice design, and more.
It certainly works.
I think you can do anything you set your mind to Linda!
Keep it up!
Your art buddy,
Michael
Thanks Michael. So you think my eye can read light, medium and dark values okay. Sometimes I wonder. I'd like to get to the point where I could read a value right off without checking it out through a punch hole in an index card.
DeleteExcellent still life, Linda! My eyes take me all over the canvas...!
ReplyDeleteThanks Hilda. That was a lucky break. I did start at one end of the canvas and stop at the other.
DeleteLooks like you have a full studio. Lots of tool for doing what you love!
ReplyDeleteProbably an overload:-) I'm a push over when it comes to art supplies. Aren't we all?
DeleteHi,Linda!lines ,colors, volumes,
ReplyDeleteeverything sings in this still life
full of rhythm!
If you LIKED painting still life
WHAT could you do???
Thanks you so much Rita. You are always encouraging.
Deleteit's great!
ReplyDeleteThanks. It's a start. The paint table is a long one. You might see every inch:-)
DeleteI love the painting! It is not a 'dead' still life at all. It speaks of your passion for painting, your lively and colorful surroundings when you are painting. So that is what I think!
ReplyDeleteThanks Judy. I appreciate that you see something there. I did have an interesting afternoon with this approach.
DeleteRita says it all!
ReplyDeleteNow I'm an ignoramus who doesn't know one end of a paint brush from the other!! So I'm allowed to say stupid things to a friend... SO ... why is still life driving you? Why don't you drive it? Why paint paint-pots when you, with your enormousness design capability and dynamic intellect could reinvent the whole thing. Take a look at the themes that Cathie Waller (On my sidebar) is doing: she's painting whole narratives about writers & poets with her still-life. You could rebuild the whole *!&88%%** world if you really wanted to!
But what do I know? :0))
John didn't you get it? I don't really want to paint still lifes, but I want to try schmid's shape/color/ value pattern method without having to drag my stuff outside to some park or field. I chose still life because it's convenient--and my paint pots were really convenient.
DeleteThe paint pots were just there. So there they are:-)
I'm not the brightest button in the box ...
DeleteSure you are. You were encouraging me to take still life to another level. I'll take a look at Cathie Willer's work. I've been a bit closed minded about the genre ever since art school and all those flowers in a vase challenges.
DeleteThe most inspiring still lifes I've seen involved dead animals. One was a rabbit laying dead on a plank top trestle table. The other was a couple of pheasants hanging from a rusty nail on a rough plank wall. I thought they were brilliant: lifeless animals in a still life. The painters, obviously hunters, had an excellent sense of humor. I, however, have a sense of humor, but don't hunt. :-)
It does look like you were enjoying yourself! Terrific example of FEELING that paint and using it very well.
ReplyDeleteIs that what I was doing? I thought I was just trying to put down the shapes of different color values.I was doing what Schmid said: painting what I saw. I really wasn't feeling anything. I think with the Schmid approach, the feeling comes in when you select what it is you are going to paint.
DeleteYou don't paint with feeling? I get the feeling from your work that you love paint, (and charcoal) and really enjoy slapping it on and pushing it around? No? Must be me then!
DeleteI love that you didn't rearrange things. It looks very natural and very inviting! I love the repetition of the round can tops throughout the piece to pull it together and keep my eye moving. Very nicely done!
ReplyDeleteThanks Katherine. The repetition of white tops is what is there. I really did just stop when I got to the right side of the canvas.
DeleteHi Linda, I have no words.....if I think that is painted "alla prima"! What to say : fantastic! Ciao!
ReplyDeleteThank you Tito. I can't get over the wonderful responses to this painting with no planning, just painting from one end of the canvas to another a subject that is in front of me every day. It wasn't great fun; it truly was a study of an approach to painting--a lazy gal's study. I didn't lift a finger to arrange anything. I don't plan to either. Thank you again for your kind words.
DeleteI cannot believe that this is your first attempt in still life.
ReplyDeleteIt is really very good.
Your are a natural, my dear!!!
Thank you. It's my first attempt at still life with oils and using the direct painting method. I'm not all that natural --ask my hair colorist:-)
Deletegreat result linda !
ReplyDelete