Sunday, December 6, 2009

Fruit Still Life Studies

"Oranges" 6x8
Oil On Linen Panel
" Lemon and Lime" 6x8
Oil On Linen Panel
"A Pair Of Pears" 6x8
Oil On Linen Panel
These three little paintings were a joy to paint! They are part of the result of my weekly studio classes I teach at my studio. The semester is now coming to an end, bitter sweet really. Exciting for a new session to start up in February, looking forward to some projects I'll be painting the next couple of months, but also sad it's already flown by. It was an incredible few months full of growth and inspiration for all, very rewarding!
So, about these little paintings. We started the semester off by studying form using the still life to understand plane changes, light, dark, half tone, and where the core of the shadow is. Fruit is an excellent subject to study from. We began by working in only value (black and white), painting from a bunch of fruit we (Marc) made with flat planes on them to help students understand how to see a plane more obvious. (I'll take a photo of these and post tomorrow) After mastering and understanding plane changes in black and white and looking at 'fake' fruit, they moved to color and real fruit.
The lemon and lime piece was a class demo I did, the pears were 'my' assignment. Each week I give the classes an assignment to work on at home and bring back to class, to set a good example I did the assignment as well. :) It's a fun excuse to paint some pears! :) The oranges I just painted this past week because my kids had a late start at school and I knew I would only have a short window to paint but needed to paint anyway! :) So, there you have it, fruit! Fun to paint, great to learn from.

2 comments:

AnnG said...

I like your small still life paintings, Kami! I enjoy painting those myself.

Best of luck to you on your Christmas/Winter show! Looks like it will be a great show... I saw pictures of it on FB.

Take care.

Kami Mendlik said...

Thanks so much Ann! They're really fun to paint. :)

The show will be fun. It looks incredible! Good company. :)

Happy Painting!