Painting!

I meant to post last week that I had been painting. I did some still lifes and was feeling good about the act of painting, but the paintings themselves weren't anything special. Then this week, I started painting some more still lifes and I feel like I've finally done something I'm happy with:




Last fall, you may remember, I did a painting of our living room, and then began one of the kitchen. But then I got sick and quit painting and by the time I felt like painting again the plants and pots in the kitchen had all been rearranged and the leaves had fallen off the trees... so it seemed like a hassle to go back to it. This week, when I was getting ready to do a new still life, I noticed most of what was unfinished in the kitchen (or at least unbegun) was the bottom, and it made the perfect backdrop for a still life - and voila! The still life with interior you see here was born. It is kind of neat because when I started it, it was so nice outside and the daffodils were blooming out the window (though they weren't in the painting), and now the trees are still bare, but we just brought in a few early daffodils to save from the frost - so it kind of came full circle. Now I'm really excited about it so don't say anything mean.



I was so excited about this improvement of my boring still lifes, that I decided to go back and put an interior behind one of the still lifes I did last week. That's how this second one came about in the reverse this time (sorry about the glare). The first one definitely has more light and interest than this one, but I think it's a definite improvement from where it was (it just had a yellow wall with shadows behind it before). I also like some of the elements in the interior like the paintings within the painting. The one you only see part of through the doorway is one of Polly Jone's paintings - which I like because she's been a big influence on me since I graduated - and you can probably see that in these paintings.


And also, for any of you who haven't been to our home, in these two paintings you pretty much see it all. Kitchen, living room, bedroom. Maybe you should watch for a painting of the bathroom soon.

I've started a couple more, maybe I'll post them in coming weeks.