Still Life | work in progess
Because the one thing I get asked the most by anyone who knows I paint is, ” What are you working on?” And because I always love to talk about what I’m working on. And because hey, it is Wednesday…
In the middle of mapping it out, I remember why I don’t put a heavily patterned cloth in every painting…
I love them. Patterns add so much to a setup. The visual texture, the depth.Nothing beats a good patterned cloth!
But laying the whole pattern out, trying to capture the sheen of a satiny cloth, that’s challenging.
The journey continues
Like an explorer on the back of a camel crossing the desert to reach an oasis, I’ve made it across the tabletop!
This is where looking at things just as shapes comes in handy.
If I think too much about the pattern, painting each little piece of each little flower, I have a tendency to distort what I’m actually seeing in front of me. I want to s-t-r-e-t-c-h it out to full size and paint what I think the flowers should look like.
Moving to the front and moving on
I’m expecting the front of the cloth to be a bit easier. The pattern is fairly straight on.
In contrast to the table top, I have much less variation in sheen to deal with, as the hanging front of the cloth is pretty uniformly in the shadow of the table top above.
I’ll also use the week ahead to catch up on things that are starting to feel like they’re getting left behind. The background and the stoppered glass vase could use another thin layer of paint, and what is going on with that plate?
