Art 105 - Progression of a Still Life

For those of you following me because of my handmade paper art, my apologies for not having much of that type of thing on the blog lately.  Between general life with three kids, finishing the basement and my painting class the only art getting accomplished around here is for the class.  I hope you'll stick with me though as I continue to explore painting as a way to enhance my handmade paper art. 

In my last post I showed you some initial efforts for the class.  Thankfully, I'm improving.  Or, at least my efforts aren't too embarrassing for public viewing. 

Having never done a still life before I decided to record my progress as a reminder that what comes before doesn't have to remain after. I'm frequently afraid, in a good share of all of my finishing work, that I'll mess up something that is already somewhat successful. One of the biggest lessons coming from this class is that you can just paint over it. Of course, I know that in my brain. But, when you actually do it over and over, it becomes rather freeing in the heart.

This is an 18 x 24 canvas at my kitchen table (I mean easel).  A key to a good still life is the directional lighting.  Since my birdhouses were too big to fit in a box in which I could control the light easily, I found myself painting at night with one directional light to make the shadows.  This was a pretty good trick as I was able to see the shadows on the still life yet barely see what I was painting!

I drew in the objects with vine charcoal.  Great stuff as it is easily wiped off when you don't get a line right.  The perspective of most of this is fairly accurate but it took a lot of wiping off first.

Oh my, this is so brown.  The assignment required that we use only white, black, yellow ochre and magenta.  Hence, the brown.



I'm liking the ripped up wall paperish background.  Check out the shadow being cast from the little white house onto the red one.  I'm getting it, I'm getting it!

I have been trying to post this for days.  Blogger is just not cooperating with the downloads.  So, you'll have to wait til the next post to see the finished piece...


Lorrie