Bon Voyage Little Still Life Paintings!

Today I packed up a couple small paintings and shipped them to Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA for their Spring Still Life Invitational, opening Friday April, 15, 6:30-9:00 PM.

This one is called "Gray Morning", it's 12x13 and oil on canvas over panel.

The Second piece is a little study of grapes and light. "One", 9x12, oil on paper.

Still life is not my usual subject matter but I enjoyed doing these paintings. It's a pleasure to spend time observing the play of light and shadow on simple subjects.

I was reminded why so many great figure painters and portrait artists also study fruit, there is something in the translucence of a grape with light shining through it that is reminiscent of the luminosity of flesh.

And why painters traditionally paint eggs as a "back to basics" study. Getting the modeling down while capturing reflected color, light and shadow was a challenge. The egg painting set-up had a red-orange piece of paper reflecting back onto the still life, as a demonstration to my students of color reflections and a study of the relative nature of color temperature.

Both of these paintings I started with my students and worked on them off and on with them as demonstration pieces.