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.
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.
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.
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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