Art: Mary M. Payne: 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.