Painting the Truth

Orange Bowl with Green Apples, oils on canvas panel, 12" x 9." Contact the artist for price

Today in class we talked about truth in painting: what we are after as painters is to find and paint the true color of objects. If we could simply put down the true color of all the objects in exactly the right place throughout the painting surface, their shapes will be conveyed to the viewer and the illusion made perfect (and we'd be geniuses!).

Since the objects in nature and our still life studies rarely have easy colors, today was a day to stay away from formulas. I struggled to try to find subtler, truer shades. In the shadows, where reflected light is most obvious, I think I managed to find some truth here and there, but the faded terracotta color of the backdrop still defeated me. I was able to see how much lighter in value it was compared to the shadow side of the pitcher, but still have a ways to go towards finding its true color.

Last weekend I recycled some of my old paintings by sanding the panels and gessoing them over. Looking at the work from last year, I was happy to see how much more color I am able to put into my paintings today than a year ago. One learns the language of color little by little, experimenting every time one paints.

A Little Mid-Winter Color

These are some of my recent works produced in the still life class (they're both oils on 9" x 12" canvas board). It's really fun to plop down these bright reds and oranges here and there as appropriate. The colors and shapes are challenging, trying to balance one against the other and make the forms "read" with just color. In nature it's much harder to find these colors. We're using bright tungsten floods to light the still life--the amazing thing is to see the actual colors of the objects, what is called "local color" and then see them in the dramatic light of our set-up. It's the difference between night and day!

If you are interested in buying either of these, just send me an E-mail and I will be happy to sign them & sell them at a great price for you. I need to keep funding my art education and this is a fun way to do it.

Painting a Still Life on a Dark Day

Still Life with Red Onions, oils on canvas board, 9" x 12"

It was dreary as I headed to Lee's studio for our afternoon session of painting: one of our typical rainy winter days. Lee had set up two still lives for us. The ginger jar and the red onions in this one appealed to me, but I knew the colors were going to be tough to bring off.

We didn't want to use the overhead fluorescent lights, as these tend to distort the colors too much, but it was so dark in the studio I really had no idea what colors I was mixing. We opened the shutters and I kept walking over to the window with my palette to mix colors. That was marginally better. Seeing my struggles, Lee offered me a tiny light with two LED's that I could clip on to the palette, which helped quite a bit. I still couldn't see my painting very well, but the colors on my palette were more visible.

I may look for a light like this to add to my kit--it could prove useful in the future. Last summer when I tried night painting, the miner's lamp with LED's proved to be too bright for the job. This might work better.

I don't know that my colors are terribly accurate, but I think at least my values are close to true. The blue bottle was the most challenging. I am developing a greater appreciation for still life painting now that I understand how challenging it can be.

Rainy Day in the Studio

Last Class, Still Life with Oranges, oils, 9" x 12"

It was very rainy the day before our last class, so our teacher E-mailed the evening before that we would meet at Maryand Hall and work on a still life in the studio rather than go out to paint in the wet outdoors. I have to confess that still life painting has never thrilled me much, so I wasn't very enthused with the idea. But I recognize that there is a great deal to be learned from the study of still life, so I was curious to see Lee's demo and try a painting with the new insights about color I've gained.

I was a bit late getting there due to the slow traffic, and the class was starting so I had no time to set up before Lee began his demo. Verbalizing his thought process was wonderful, as usual: how and why he "edited" to select his particular composition, how he put in his main blocks of color and only after these were down and the white surface mostly covered did he begin to refine the color and shapes.

Since we were doing longer critiques for this last class and I had to lay out my palette, I didn't have as much time to actually paint as I would have liked. I struggled finding the right "val-hues," particularly for the green bowl and the blue bottle, and my shapes are not very refined, but it is amazing to see the theories translate into this painting. Strange how just the right val-hues can convey the shapes even at this primitive stage in the painting!