Still Life with Starfruit

This is a step by step of a commission that I just completed for a client who is collecting a series of these long narrow still life canvases. I had never thought of painting starfruit because it wasn't a fruit I was at all familiar with, however, it has beautiful form and created an interesting shadow along the edge of the bowl. My client requested this particular cloth, which is an Egyptian Prayer Rug, and the plate is Turkish. It made a nice exotic combination.

 

Because the plate had white in it, the cloth was creamy white, and the starfruit was basically white with touches of yellow and green, I had to evolve into how to create a vibrant colourful painting, as my client and I both love colour. So I started with something I know well - grapes.

I started adding colour and pumped up the vibrancy of the star fruit by bringing out the yellow and green.

I decided at this point that the contrast of the shadow shapes in the cloth were far too strong, (I was working from a few photographs as well as some of it from life) so as I changed the colour of the cloth, I also softened the shadow effect.

This photo was taken inside on my easel and the colours appear very cool. I slept on it and decided to soften the contrast slightly and warm up the lights a bit.

Here is the final painting which I shot outdoors in the shade. The colours came out much warmer here. I felt it was a very busy painting with the patterns in the cloth and plate, so for compositional purposes I softened the colours in the fabric above the plate. 

I find commissions very challenging because they are someone else's inspiration rather than your own. In the end, this painting became one of mine, but I had some moments of struggling. I really like the person I was painting this for, and concentrated on created a thing of beauty for this special client. 

When you paint commissions how do become inspired by the content if it's not necessarily something you would choose to paint?

Still Life with Starfruit

Lemons & Light II - Still Life Step by Step

I just completed this painting as a practice with acrylics, for an upcoming workshop I'm teaching on October 23rd, at Monterey Center in Victoria BC  -  Contemporary Still Life in Acrylics. I've been painting all of my most recent Still Life paintings in oils, so I had to do a little practice to remember how to blend, layer colours, and create luminous light effects  Below is the step by step of the painting process:

When painting Still Life, I like to do a quick value study first. Because I wanted to create a sun drenched light effect in the fruit and cloth, I used glazes of transparent colours. This allows the light to pass through the layers of paint to the white canvas below creating a luminous light effect. 

Lemons & Light II - Still Life Step by Step

Melon and Mandarines

Original Oil on Linen  8 x 8  NFS

Here is the last still life from my workshop. I actually finished painting it at home and enjoyed taking a little more time to think through some of the decisions. Although I'm happy with the outcome, it's a bit tighter than I'm attempting to paint these days, as it's a Christmas present and the recipient will prefer that style. I really enjoyed the workshop with Keith Hiscock (find him on facebook), who has motivated me to shake things up a bit and remember to put the art into what I'm doing, by looking at the canvas instead of the set up once I have enough information. When I paint landscapes or cityscapes, I spend a lot more time putting the art into it - editing out, changing the position of things to create a better composition, changing the amount of light coming through the trees. It seems that still lifes really pull me into a literal place. I think it comes from trying to nail that value and hue with minimal brushstrokes and then the next thing I realize that I've become chained to the set up. I guess there are no compositional or lighting changes that need to happen as I've created the the set up to my liking, so the art part becomes all about edges and brush work.  What about you? Do you find yourself being more literal with still lifes, and if not, how do you work your painting to avoid it?

Melon and Mandarines

Clementines

Clementines Original Oil Painting on Linen 8 x 8 Framed - SOLD

Free s/h CAN & USA International please email for shipping rate

I had a very slow start on this one. I wiped it off twice before finally deciding to sit down, thereby changing my viewpoint and avoiding drawing the opening of the pitcher. Some days you just can't make it happen! I ended up liking this composition better and am pleased with the outcome. I'm working on more painterly brushstrokes, which I think I achieved on the pitcher and the cloth. The clementines ended up a bit tighter, but you have to start somewhere!

This painting is of one of my favourite belongings - a Tuscan pitcher. I bought it at a flea market in a little village in the Southwest of France. The woman who sold it to me, told me a wonderful story of how she came to own it. A flea market vendor in Tuscany was berating the crowd for being so cheap and not buying anything from him on this particular day. He held up the pitcher and kept lowering the price until finally he offered it for free, at which point she stepped forward and accepted it. The irony is that she didn’t pay it forward, she charged me for it, and quite a healthy price too! But I’m happy I own it all the same. :-)

Clementines

Chez Monette

Chez Monette
Acrylic on Exhibition Canvas   24 x 24  $600 + s/h


I'm really pleased to be part of the Autumn Show 2010 in the Victoria Airport Arrivals and Departures Lounge. I received lots of feedback on the last show that featured my Jazz Series. This new show will feature some of my Still Life paintings. I haven't been able to see the shows because I'm not traveling so I don't have authorization to enter the area. Darn!

I enjoy painting the sculptural, sensual forms of pears and I really love painting textiles. In this case the textile was a lace edged linen tablecloth. The embroidery was quite complicated and I thought how am I going to simplify that? So I really squinted the whole time I was painting the lace edge and tried to capture values, rather than trying to recreate the actual pattern of the embroidery. I wasn't sure if it was going to work, and I had one of those 'please don't wreck this painting' moments, but in the end I was really pleased with the effect. So I highly recommend squinting! I'll post another one or two of the Airport paintings over the next few days.

Chez Monette

En Provence

Original Acrylic on Exhibition Canvas
Image painted over all Four Sides
24 x 24  $800 + s/h


I completed this painting last summer, as part of a show entitled Mediterranean Moments. I did the still life set up with props that I owned, and was given a huge, beautiful lavender bouquet by a friend of a friend. The owner of the lavender has a lavender farm on her property, and as she is also an artist she went above and beyond to get the lavender to me, in perfect shape. I was deeply grateful. I then needed a background for the set up, and having lived in France, I had photos of lavender fields in my photo file. But to place the still life in front of a field from a photo was rather tricky. I was very nervous to try this and didn't want to ruin a good still life with a bad background, so I decided to paint the background first, thereby eliminating unnecessary work if it turned out poorly. The next tricky part was depicting the hot Mediterranean sun. I did many set ups in full sun at various times of day, and took even more photographs, finally arriving at this design. The last challenging part was painting all that white! White is so hard to paint! Very little of it is actually white. Because of all the lavender in the painting, I mixed a variety of temperatures and tones of lavender grey. In the end it was a great experience which I believe grew my painting skills. So don't be afraid to try something difficult. When we push ourselves we grow.

En Provence

Above the Courtyard

Acrylic on Exhibition Canvas  24 x 24  SOLD
Image is painted around all four sides

When I was living in the Southwest of France I loved the intimacy of the wrought iron balcony with it's warm sunshine and quiet moments with friends, while down below in the courtyard another animated world complete with fountains, children, seniors and pitanque players was taking place. I worked hard at capturing the golden warmth of the early evening sunlight as it hit these gorgeously ripe nectarines and the folds in the cloth. I'm also really pleased with the reflections in the glaze of the ceramic bowl. I used a combination of full body and fluid acrylics to create the glow and light effects.

 

Above the Courtyard

French Doors and Flowers

Original Oil on Canvas 8 x 10 Framed SOLD
Please contact for shipping quote


I demonstrated at the Night Market in my neighbourhood the other night, and decided to do this smaller version of a larger painting I did a while back. I'm quite pleased with the loose brushwork and spontaneity of it. It was a beautiful sunny evening and a good time was had by all.

French Doors and Flowers

In the Garden

Acrylic on Exhibition Canvas 24 x 24 SOLD

I'm pleased to announce that I have been juried into the Butchart Gardens Summer Art Show and Sale. The Butchart Gardens is our premiere Victoria attraction with 50 acres of the most spectacular floral finery and landscaping. It's a fabulous experience in all seasons. The above painting 'In the Garden' was a perfect fit for this show. When I first had the concept for this painting, I wanted to capture the pleasure of breakfast in the garden on a summer's day. When I actually set up the still life to photograph, it quickly became about light and shadow. I loved the shadows cast across the tea cup and table and onto the garden chair. I wanted to capture the bright summer sun, but give the impression of the freshness in the garden with the cool blue and white colour scheme. I'm really pleased with the result.

In the Garden

Olé!

Acrylic on Gallery Wrapped Canvas  36 x 24  $600 + s/h


I had so much fun painting "Three Amigos", the post of July 9th, that I decided to take it to a large format. I added an extra bowl for height and a few things in the foreground because of the extra space in changing from a square to rectangular composition. All the objects are many times their life size, and seen in real life, the stack of bowls is quite impressive, like a feat of balance. So I called it Olé! Greatly enlarged objects are an interesting concept. Maybe something to consider in the future. I think I prefer Three Amigos, probably because the image was fresh for me, and it was so cute, it almost had it's own personality, but Ole has some power. Which do you prefer? Tell me what you think about this concept. This is the last of my Mexican theme.....for the moment.

Olé!

Just Picked

Just Picked
Acrylic on Gallery Wrapped Canvas
12 x 12 SOLD

I have this great over sized Italian Latte cup and saucer that looked fabulous filled with cherries this past summer. That's about all the cherries we managed to get out of our tree because the birds make a steady diet of them, until we're left with just the leaves. But since I love all the birds that visit our yard, I'm willing to share. The fruit and the cup were quite reflective, so I concentrated on that with minimal brushstrokes, and trying to give the painting a summery, fun feel.

Just Picked

City Dwelling

City Dwelling   Acrylic on Linen  16 x 20  $450 + s/h
Please contact for shipping quote

This painting is inspired from photos I took while living in Paris, France. We had a great apartment in the attic of a seven floor walk up. Yes you read that correctly. Luckily it was a beautiful staircase. Spiral, polished wood, tapestry carpets and floor to ceiling French windows on each landing. But the très chic apartments just above the cafes, within the trees that line the boulevards, like the one in this painting, always fascinated me. These people had large luxurious apartments, and on opening their French doors, could take in all the energy of the street life. I always thought of them as the Parisiens who were really 'City Dwelling'. This building had such beautiful old world charm and combined with the flower boxes full of geraniums, I simply had to paint it. 

 

City Dwelling