Two Still Life Paintings

Above are the final photos of two still life paintings I recently completed working from life in my studio. The setup for the first one, Trio in Blue, was illuminated using a regular (warm) light bulb, whereas I used a full-spectrum light bulb to illuminate the bottle in the bottom painting, Ocean Waves. For both of these paintings, I started with a loose drawing of basic shapes to get the images centered on the board and properly proportioned. From there, I began adding color and contrast, constantly refining until I was happy with the level of detail.

Still Life Paintings Completed

I just completed these still life paintings working from life in my studio. The bottle for the painting on the right was illuminated with a daylight light bulb, whereas the setup for the painting on the left was illuminated with a regular incandescent light bulb. This was a good exercise to observe and paint objects under different lighting situations, but now I am tired of painting blue bottles, and so I am moving on to a portrait!

Still Life In Progress

Pictured here is a still life I'm painting from life in my studio. I have a light shining on the setup, and blackout curtains to keep daylight from interfering. I think that the next time I might try painting something illuminated with daylight, and try to restrict my painting to the same time each day (or paint really fast!)

I definitely appreciate being able to see so much more working from life. I also think that working from life makes it easier to stay aware of the object as a whole and keep colors and contrast in check. Probably the most difficult part is the initial sketch, having to compose the image without seeing it already cropped as in a photograph. 

Two New Oil Paintings

I just returned from scanning my two latest oil paintings, shown above. The first is called Timeless, and the model is a woman named Sylvia from Salem, MA who owns an antique and jewelry store. The second painting is the one I've been blogging about recently, my self portrait done from the mirror. Now that I have that one under my belt, I feel more comfortable about painting others from life.

SP from Mirror Almost Done...

Here's a snapshot of my in-progress self portrait from the mirror, just about complete. Tomorrow make final tweaks and get a better image to post to my blog and website. This was a huge challenge for me, and I learned a lot (including that I have a lot to learn). I struggled at first in part because I had the canvas illuminated from sunlight filtering in through two windows, but my face was completely in the dark, and too difficult to see in the mirror. I remedied this later on with a small artificial daylight lamp. In addition, I believe that I was focusing too much on details too early on, at a time when the proportions were not yet established. Luckily, oil paint is great for making changes!

SP Work in Progress Continued

Here you can see my progress on the self portrait I'm painting from the mirror. This is much closer to what I want, though there are some real rough spots still. I think that perhaps one more day should do it.

SP from Mirror

An update on my self portrait done from the mirror... I think this at least looks like me. I'm working on a commission too, but this was bothering me so I decided to attack it one last time.