Still life

 I was thinking about what my friend G said yesterday about my post.  It's true that my beginning paintings could be considered "still lives"..... a still life being a drawing or painting of an arrangement of objects.

I am still working on this one, it isn't as bright as this photo , I need to re-work the background color.  I am not sure I like it.

  I have always been fascinated by the arrangement of objects.  There are so many combinations and textures to play with.  And aside from flowers or fruit that ripens or fades,  you can leave the objects in place for a long time to come back to during the week.  As long as you don't have a cat, that is.   My methodical side likes this idea of painting one subject over many days.


   In French "still life" painting is known as "nature morte" or literally: "dead nature".
Since still life paintings traditionally were done of fruit , flowers, shells, and rocks...I suppose the name came from the fact that all of these elements …..well,  were not alive.   Or maybe the French name had to do with the myriad paintings with dead game in them that were popular in the Flemish baroque period. 

Kimberly Witham,  the taxidermist/artist came up with images of "road kill" along with fruit and fancy plates etc …. no different in content really from Flemish art depicting freshly killed rabbits, lobsters, or wild ducks lying stretched out with tankards, fruit and flowers.  
Take a look at Kimberly's imaginative work.   
 http://kimberlywitham.com/kimberly_witham/Kimberly_Witham.
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    As for my own attempts of "still life" over the years…they vary from traditional to abstract. The paintings below all count as "still lives".   Maybe I will get back to this genre one of these days.  

This one is almost an abstract.  Painted on raw canvas treated with rabbit skin glue. 

Can't seem to crop this one.  This is in a collection in Seattle.

Sold

Two tone, two plate lino cut print

I used all my dishes whose shapes I liked and made them into a unified color range for this stylized still life. 

Knife painting took about 10 minutes to paint

This one is a nod to  Cezanne

First attempts at painting

When I first started doing my own art   (instead of reproductions), I was very unsure of what that would be and whether I would be able to deliver what was on my mind.   

 I have always been drawn to intimate interior scenes and still life.  So some of my first paintings were of interiors in watercolors.   

This and the little painting to follow are of a corner of my living room in Nice.  At least the balustrade is really there but the pieces of furniture were actually a table and a book shelf in the corner.  I changed the table into a desk in the first drawing and then a blue table in the second.    I imagined the bouquet, the book, the drawers etc. 

After all one can paint whatever one wants whether it's there are not.  In fact an artist has to edit..... to get a good composition.  And therein lies the first creative step.

 At the time of this painting, I was reading a book by Natalie Goldberg the author of the writer's manual called Writing Down the Bones.    Being a fan, I had bought her book called In Living Color as well. 

 Even though Goldberg didn't think of herself as an artist at the time, she started on a trip with a pen and watercolors.  In Living Color  she shows some fanciful illustrations of places she has lived and scenes from her travels .  Her naive style is an authentic voice and I am sure my second painting was influenced by her expressive images and quirky style.

Natalie Goldberg paintings

After I did the first composition, I started to breathe easier.   This was freedom and whatever I painted was going to be a surprise.   

   So for the next picture of the same corner,   I realized, hey.... I want a blue table and a window and balustrade that are acting out and dancing away.  Why not?