Between struggling with harder paintings, cutting and priming a new set of painting boards, I worked on a few still lives. These paintings took between an hour and five to complete and are now finished. They show a more practiced hand in mark making, but there is still a lot to learn. I really enjoyed them, and found them quite therapeutic while struggling my way through much more complex art work.
Still Life of Art Materials
Since I was struggling all week I decided to have a clean break, start and finish two paintings within a day, play with tone and mark making without worrying too much about the results. I started with a very dark ground, so that the lightest areas would be a struggle and I'd need to work at it, preventing me from going straight to garish white v black. In all my favorite paintings the tonal affect is rendered through subtlety. Its something I need to learn.
Garlic Still Lives
These paintings took around an hour each and were extremely fun and satisfying. The canvas board is extremely small, 4 x 6 inches, so that I covered the space in a matter of minutes. Its a much better way of waiting for priming on larger pieces to dry, even if in such a short time I'm unlikely to create mind provoking masterpieces.
