Category: Still life

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Fall still life: time just flew by

Fall still life, shop watercolor paintings

Still life has it all

Still life has been my most favorite subject ever since I can remember myself. I love setting up some fruit and arrange some leaves, flowers and jars, so that it looks exactly as I like. Still life allows capturing everything that is important in a painting: proportions, values, direction of light and shadows and contrast. Still life is essence of art.

Time constraints

Time is rushing us so badly that it sometimes feels I just wake up and go back to sleep. At least, I got this feeling recently. Along with doctor’s appointments, household stuff, daily meals, cleaning, laundry, classes, preparation of new images and painting steps, preparation of hand-out materials, advertising, social media posts, two huge medical writing jobs: that meant there was no time to paint. Although, my show is coming up and this is a gift season for which I should have been preparing. Well, I am trying to do my best.

I put up a few decorations yesterday, and I had to give a class later, and that was it. The day just disappeared again. Anyway, I’m posting a watercolor still life which was done about 3 weeks ago,

Daily duties and art

I hope my duties will somewhat balance out during the upcoming weeks and I can get to things which I really want to do: i simply would love to paint more. I love just setting up a still life, drawing and painting it.

Starting painting for a class is not quite the same: I have to take into account all distinctive levels of skill, and we often have absolute beginners, so that painting is just an illustration for what I am saying while teaching.

Showing is definitely better than only telling about it. It is very helpful also that I can see and correct things which are usually problematic for students: very little paint, too much water, completely dry brush, dirty brush, putting too much pressure on brush and similar basic issues  which frequently arise when starting to paint.

Common beginners’ mistakes

One thing which is always wrong when painting in any medium and using any subject is trying to paint with tiny bits of paint or not having paint on a brush. We have to be generous!

I think,  generous people also have much better results when creating art, they simply are not that much afraid of wasting anything. That certainly helps!

About this particular painting

I had started it while traveling to Latvia. I had two apples and some beautiful leaves. I created a composition which felt like I needed to add something more to it. Since I didn’t have pears and grapes, I simply drew them in. I just got the first layer, and didn’t get back to this painting until I arrived back in Canada. It looked quite terrible as first rough layers only.

Starting to paint first layer

So, Thought what can I do about this painting because it looked promising and I loved the composition. I added background, quite a few layers, but don’t have any pictures, and after a few layers of extra washes, it came to life and started looking great.

Apples and pears, still life
Autumn fruit still life, 16 x 12 in or 41 x 30.5 cm

Feel your subject

For me, painting a still life means to become my subject and to feel its energy. I feel like the apple in this still life, or like the pear, or even the leaf. I love soothing and warm colors. That is best achieved when using not a photo, but real things. I will also not stop painting until the still life feels right to me.

Painting takes time. You should be ready to spend on a painting at least a few hours here and there, so that disturbances, interruptions or other activities are not a problem. I just didn’t get this chance recently, but I’m looking hopefully to the future.

Fall still life
Closer look at the central part

Reasons to paint still life

I intend to draw and paint more still life paintings. Why? I cannot frequently get out into the nature, but things to use in a still life setting are always easily available. I believe drawing still life is as good practice as drawing faces or scenes with figures. The main thing is: we teach our eyes and brain to see and perceive.

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The magic attraction of drawing and watercolor

Sketching and drawing for ageless brain and memory

Pencil and paint become magic tools

Drawing and watercolor painting take time, and I was recently short of it. However, we created sketches from real fruits in our watercolor class. We did also a large-scale reference drawing for our still life painting, and we are about to finish the chickadees and birch painting in the evening class.  Creating pencil sketches is the best you can do to make painting easier.

Drawing therapy

I paint and create drawings even when I cannot do anything else. I paint and do drawing when I feel desperate, disappointed with the reality of life and when I am having mood swings because of the strong medications. It can be a bit difficult to get started, bet when I overcome the resistance, it is a pleasure. I don’t always care how great the painting or drawing will be or how perfect the color combinations will come out. Art is so therapeutic that I cannot compare it with anything else.

Creating still life drawing
One set-up of still life which resulted in reference drawing to be used for creation of a painting

Advantage of live classes

When we compare online, over-the-internet and live art classes, I must say nothing can replace the live interaction and face-to-face learning. Why? Because I can see right away what’s causing some problem: too much water, too dry paper, too less paint, too much paint, bad quality paper, brush or paint.

Large still life drawing
Any of these drawings might become paintings, this one is  22 x 29 inches ( 56 x 74 cm)

When it comes to watercolors, everything matters, yet, the quality of paper is the most important part. I always use the same paper that I give my students which is quite large size, approximately 16 x 18 in or 41 x 46 cm. This time it was 18 x 24 inches or 46 x 61 cm. Big practice painting is much more beneficial.

Fruit sketch
Drawing still life: pen and watercolor sketch

Transferring drawing for watercolor
First step in still life painting is sketch: we did a very light line drawing and began to apply some paint

Watercolor layers
This is just the start, but we will finish this painting during the next class

Process

First we create the drawing and value sketch with all shadows and halftones. You can do that in pencil, using pen or even pen and ink. We transfer the drawing onto watercolor paper using very light lines. Once paper is wet, we cannot erase anything. We do the first washes and add layers and more layers until our paintings looks completed.

Sketching and drawing for ageless brain and memory

Don’t go tiny, experiment with large sizes

I have seen over the years how tiny and small paper prevents one from creating good art. If paper is too small, it will be definitely too difficult to apply paint on it. If you are watching somebody paint online and you do not have a very thick, heavy and good quality paper, you can kill yourself, but you simply won’t achieve what they are showing you. Saving on paper is a mistake because thin paper won’t allow to use multiple washes. With bad paints, you won’t have great results and transparency also, so, it’s best to have the decent ones.

Drawing real things

I love drawing, therefore, I’m also teaching students to draw from real life, not photos whenever possible. I believe that drawing from real  subjects results in the best art because it gives one absolute freedom of interpretation. I find drawing easy because I was learning drawing not from photos, but from real subjects and set-ups. I am simply good at it and it is very helpful not to have to use computer for editing.

Enjoy the benefits of creativity

I hope that more people will pick up pencils and brushes following my advice and get started with drawing and painting. There is simply nothing like it. It doesn’t demand one to be in good shape or to be dressed up or look perfect, it doesn’t even require being in a good mood. That comes as an additional benefit along the way. I’m also seeing art as a tool to cure addictions and prevent from falling back into them. Creativity is  a powerful tool which we all can make use of.

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Focusing on still life and garden scenes

Focusing on still life and garden scenes

Summer is a great time to engage in plein-air painting.

I recently painted a garden scene called “Take a Rest” with some flowers and garden tools.

I use real scenes and real set-ups to create my paintings, I somehow cannot paint using photos, I just can’t.

Focusing on still life and garden scenes

First, I do a freehand drawing. The weather was very good for a while, so, I could paint every day outdoors. I had set up the exact items in my backyard, and it was a double pleasure to paint there.

The other painting is a still life called “Kitchen Symphony”.

I had set up all items in my art studio where I have a good light. For my paintings, daylight is extremely important because of color adjustment. Any artificial light changes color.

Focusing on still life and garden scenes

I think, both paintings came out quite nicely, however, it was very late when I took a photo of my garden scene, so the light might be not that perfect.

I hope you enjoy such art!

More of my still life: Painting still life