Watercolor - Still Life with Sugar and Lemons

"Still Life with Lemons and Swiss Sugar Shaker" (11"X14", Watercolor, $100)

I like this one because of the color combination of orange, blue, yellow and purple. It was done in watercolor class using objects that one of the students had brought in. I also like the angle of perspective that draws the viewer into the composition.

The main focal point is off-center to the left, and the patterned table runner brings your eye from right to left, and then to the lemons in back as a kind of 'stopper', up to the point of the sugar shaker and then back to the lower right corner along the slope of the table edge. Things like that keep the viewers' eyes moving around the picture long enough to see the colors and decide to like them.

Watercolor - Still Life with Yellows and Blues

"Still Life with Lemon and Leeks" (11"X14", Watercolor, $100)

The diffuse light in this painting says it was done in class. I feel it's a successful picture and the textures are pretty convincing. The fabric is clearly a thin one, like a pillowcase; The pillowcase is clearly sitting on two sheets of black paper; The little pot in the background is clearly a copper and bronze-y item, and the food objects are clearly food. The lemon is dimly reflected in the cobalt blue vial and the reflections in the spoon tell the viewer that it's face down.

The only broken border in this picture in the bottom portion, which enhances the feeling that the black paper is flat, rather than it being a perspective illusion.

Watercolor - Still Life with Silver Goblet

"Watercolor with Goblet, Bowl and Stick" (14"X11", Watercolor, $85)

This was a homework setup which you can kind of tell by the fact that the light is so directional rather than being more diffuse from the overhead in-class lighting. The goblet is just a trinket (not silver) but I wanted to try painting the reflective metallic surface. The same as with painting clear glass, what you don't paint is as important as what you do. The colors of the surrounding objects reflected in the metal make the silver look the way it does (I think that black blot on the front of the goblet is me).

I like the wash-y watercolor technique in this one. The colors change and fade through the effect of the water, and the layered thin washes show through each other, creating different color effects. The broken border appears again in this picture on every side. I only wish I'd taken more time to render the fabric. Maybe next time.

Watercolor - Still Life with Various Textures

"Watercolor Study of Various Textures" (11"X14", Watercolor, $85)

Another watercolor class piece. It's just a study but I think it turned our pretty well. This setup includes a cigar box, a Granny Smith in a ceramic cup, an antique wooden finial (which also appears in the first oil still life posting on this blog) and a replica antique fish-shaped whiskey bottle. I think the glass element came out best; isolated color patches that contain washy mixtures of dark brown and green to contrast with the unpainted white patches that indicate the reflected light on its glossy surface.

Interior Watercolor Still Life

"In the Apartment with Stained Glass and Candles" (14"X11", Watercolor, $85)

This was one of the homework pieces that I talked about earlier. This was done in my living room in the North End while sitting on my couch. Lots of tiny details were left out to simplify the composition, but not too much has changed. New barstools, a little table by the window, and the stained glass has been moved to a window further to the left. That's about it for actual layout changes.

In this picture I tried to express a line of light that makes its way to the window, the picture's light source. I like the looseness of the painting and the broken borders; where the kitchen island light and the antique chair brush the edges. The dim lighting cuts down on the color saturation and the contrast in the picture, both of which would both normally help define shapes and guide the eye through the painting.

Watercolor - Still Life with Bowls and Fruit

"Tabletop with Bowls, fruit and a Pumpkin" (8"X10", Watercolor, $65)

This small piece was done with the tables mentioned in the last post pushed into the circle that they form so well. In the middle, the instructor put a small table with the setup on it. That was so we could all sit around the circle and see different setups from the various angles. Where I was sitting I had a pretty good selection of things to paint.

I like the crowdedness of this composition, the fullness of it, if you like. I also think the crumpled fabric with its fancy pattern makes the overall picture more balanced: large shapes here (grapefruit, tangerine, granny apple, white bowls) and delicate shapes (the fabric and the terra cotta swan-and-reed dish) there. The blue notes go diagonally down from left to right and the green notes go diagonally up from left to right.

I even like the little bits where the objects break out of the border, along the top and on the left side. The ruffled edge of the fabric actually raises the 'border' along the bottom. Altogether a nice little picture.

Watercolor - Still Life with Bottles

"Bottles on the Table - Watercolor Class" (Watercolor, 14"X11", $100)

I took a class in watercolor a couple years ago and I did lots of in-class work and lots of 'homework' pieces, to drill the points of each class deeper into my head. I've learned and then forgotten more information in my art classes than I care to think about. I always try to do as much on my own between classes (these are Adult Ed classes, by the way) so that the lessons don't just evaporate. I should probably also take notes.

In this picture, painting glass was the object; some translucent and some clear, to keep it interesting. I'd always heard that what makes glass look glossy is the juxtaposition of sharply contrasting elements, even if it's just reflections. I've also heard that what you leave out when you paint clear glass is just as important as what you actually render. I tried to do both things in this painting.

You can see the wood-molding chair rail that goes around the room, a leftover from the times when Brookline High School was originally built in the late 1800's. Also, the angles of the formica tables that make it easy to form the tables into a circle - a leftover from the education reforms of the late 1960's.