Tea wash

Tea for one ! OK I think I may have figured out how to post photos and text. Yipppeeeee !!

This photo looks a little yellowed, it does have a lot of warm colors, but just didn't post quite right. I'll do better on that next time. The teacup series is a way for me to explore color and composition. Still lifes are great for that. I really want to move into including food in the paintings, but we'll get there. The cups themselves are part of a collection belonging to my deceased Mother-in-law. I inherited them along with many other lovely things that I really appreciate. I never had an opportunity to get to know her very well, but I think she had lovely taste in things. Her condo was gorgeous, the result of paring down years of collecting beautiful objects. I consider myself lucky to have these things to play with.

I will do some more photos this week-end. I finished a darling tiny still life. I am working very small with a goal of painting more: instead of a few large paintings that are clumsy to store and not always what I was shooting for, I can experiement to my hearts content in a smaller format. I am even using scraps to dash off book mark sized sketches just for the fun of playing with an idea.

I've been looking at a lot of still lifes by masters lately. What I am seeing is fairly shallow space, a lot of backlighting or very dark grounds to set off very light objects. I actually copied a few Manet still lifes just to understand the lighting. Shadows, especially. I do like a LOT of color in shadows. It seems to prevent the dreaded dead flat pasted oneffect that can happen. Also shadows are important shapes that need to be respected. Yep..better respect those shadows or they will come back and bite you at the end of a painting.

I've been reading "The War of Art" by Stephen Pressfield. His contention is that resistance is a killer of creative efforts is so right on. I am finding more and more that simply creating the habit of going to my studio in the morning is producing more work than trying to hit it for longer periods on the week-end. If you go there, the muse will come. YES !!!