Winter Still Life

When the weather closes in here in flyover land, many of us hunker down in our studios and work on something besides outdoor landscapes. One of my fascinations for years has been how light bends and shimmers as it passes through glass and liquids, reflects off a surface or submerges into shadows. Still life is a particularly good way to look at those things, so when winter takes hold, work moves indoors.

During the past month or so much of my studio time has been devoted to still life paintings from setups. I use a still life stage that can be draped and set up in whatever way you want. These two paintings are oil on panel, both 9x12. 

Hoff, "Olive Jar and Squeeze Bottle," oil on panel, 9x12

Sometimes still life paintings are put together with an agenda--that is, there is a point to be made. For example the vanitas format that was popular in the 16h century incorporates various objects that are intended to produce reflections on mortality and evanescence when viewed--bubbles, skulls, smoke, etc. But some still life is just a selection of objects arranged in a certain way, as Giorgio Morandi, the Italian painter of the 20th century did. These were for practice and contain no hidden narrative or metaphor.

For the first (above) I put a jar of olives and a plastic squeeze bottle on a blue cloth, and lighted them from the right. The glass reflected light while the plastic bottle diffused it so there were varying opportunities to study the light as it passed through and how the fluid inside was highlighted. Although the objects are hardly traditional, the study was productive for me.

Hoff, "Pellegrino Bottle," oil on panel, 9x12

The second still life, like the first, was an arrangement of objects on a cloth, this time a bright red one. The tall green bottle was interesting because green is the complement of red, causing the bottle to stand out. The silver cup and lemon were actually inventions--that is they did not exist, only the bottle and cloth were in the setup. The light came from the same direction and about the same angle though. In this one the hardest part was establishing the solidity and transparency of the bottle against the cloth. I did that by varying values, edges, and color mixes as the painting progressed. In the end it feels like a success.

So winter is a busy time for a painter, too. But until the weather warms, it's the studio for me.