Postcards From The Easel A Blog about the Art and Artifice of Still Life Painting
Using the Shadowbox
The shadowbox sitting to the right of my easel Most of these paintings are made with the use of a shadowbox – a piece of studio equipment that is as important to creating them paintings as is the easel. It’s a wooden box of my own construction, 2 feet on each side, with an open […]
Warm and Cool Colors
“Silver Creamers on Blue Silk”, oil on panel, 5×5 inches(Click to see more images) Painters often think in terms of warm and cool colors. It’s one of the tools we have for organizing a picture’s composition, and bringing coherence to the design. Sometimes it’s a simple as having distinct warm-colored and cool-colored objects in the […]
Looking Through the Glass
“Glass, Lemon, Blue Silk, Red Napkin”, oil on linen on panel, 8×6 inches We encounter it day in and day out. We look at it and touch it dozens, if not hundreds of times daily. Without it, our lives would be far darker, less comfortable, and probably a good deal less healthy as well. We […]
Mirrors Everywhere
Detail from “Still Life with Clear Sky”, acrylic on panel, 5×6 inches, 2014Mirrors are simply surfaces that do an exceptionally good job of reflecting light. The reality is that nearly all surfaces – even our skin – reflect the light that hits them, and so can loosely be thought of as mirrors. When we say […]
Oriental Rugs in Paintings
“Handmade Bowl, Grapes, Tibetan Rug”, oil on panel, 5×5 inches (sold)Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with another painter about oriental rugs. Not only are the patterns and designs endlessly fascinating, but the weavers often had an amazing sense of color harmony – the best of them seem to glow from within. And for hundreds […]
Lost and Found Edges
“Teacup and Teapot”, oil on panel, 5×6 inches, 2008 (sold)Artists who paint like this often talk about creating a sense of “lost and found”. This refers to what happens at the edges of the objects and where shadows begin. Rather than creating a clear silhouette all around an object, an artist might choose to have […]
An Imperfect Mirror
Metal objects are frequently very elaborate mirrors, reflecting and transforming their surroundings in fascinating ways. In this small passage from a larger painting, the handle of the knife captures everything around it, but restates it differently. Detail from “”Tangerine, Knife, Shotglass”, oil on linen, 24×30 inches.
A Trompe String
Trompe l’oeil (“fool the eye”) is a form of still life painting where the representation is so close to reality that the viewer is tricked into thinking the actual objects are before them. It’s not my main interest or goal, but I have done a few of these paintings. Here’s a detail from one of […]
A Constellation of Highlights
Smooth, hard surfaces make for crisp, well-defined highlights. In this section of a larger painting, the teacup shimmers with brilliant intense points of light, almost like miniature fireworks. Detail from “Teacup, Fork, and Two Oranges on Granite”, oil on linen, 8×10 inches. Please follow my stories to see what I’m working on right now.
Shadows are the Stars
In some paintings, the shadows are the real stars. That’s the case here, where the knife casts a dramatic shadow that flows across everything, and eventually right across the edge of the board and out of the picture. For your enjoyment: “Creamer, Knife, Bread”, oil on linen on panel, 5×5 inches. This painting was purchased […]
Shimmering Sushi
I’m not passionate about sushi. I enjoy it from time to time, and that’s enough for me. But the colors and textures – I could feast on those all day long. Here, the skin on a piece of mackerel has a shimmering metallic surface that was a delight to paint. For your enjoyment: “Sushi No. […]
Translucence
Translucence occurs when a solid substance is thin enough to allow light to pass through it. Even stone can readily become translucent. The jade bowl was thin enough to allow much of the overhead light to shine through, creating a beautiful effect on the sides where it did not receive any light directly. Detail from […]
What do I listen to while painting?
Friends sometimes ask me what I listen to in the studio while I’m painting. Sometimes they’ll even ask me for a recommendation. The answer, of course, is “Whatever works best for you”. But, for long periods of intense focus on detail-oriented work, I have found that some things work better than others. Since this […]
Appealing to Every Sense
It’s Not Just The Vision Quick – which of your five senses do paintings appeal to? It’s an easy answer, right? After all, it’s called visual art for a reason. While sight might be the most obvious answer, it’s hardly the only sense that paintings can appeal to. In fact, some artists have […]
Interesting Reflection Issue
While painting a particular passage today, I noticed that the reflection of a cast shadow in a piece of silver was substantially darker than the shadow itself. I could see that the cast shadow was being illuminated by the reflection onto the stone of a strong highlight immediately behind it. I also knew that there […]
A Quick Perspective Trick
Many artists – even established professionals – have an uneasy relationship with perspective. That’s understandable, given how involved it can be to figure out, say, the proper perspective of a complicated geometric shape with multiple vanishing points. It’s good, and I think necessary, to know how to do this. But, in the real world, I […]
The Grisaille Underpainting
The Grisaille The Simplest Form of Underpainting A completed grisaille for a larger paintingUnderpaintings are monochromatic versions of the painting, over which the final color layer will eventually be applied. It’s an intermediate step in the Flemish technique (which is the basis for the process I follow), that is done after the drawing and before […]
Painting Metal
How did you do that? From time to time I’ll get a nice compliment about how I paint metal. This is often followed up with questions about how I do it. Unfortunately, there’s not a simple secret that I can reveal. I approach metal the same way I approach any other type of object: Observe […]
Cultivating the Habit of Beauty
Keeping it Beautiful at Every Step Sometimes a minor shortcoming can illustrate a larger point. The image above is the completed underpainting for this week’s project. One thing you might notice is that the tones get cooler and bluer towards the bottom. As I got to the end of the working day, I ran out […]