This setup was a bit of an accident, but perhaps my favorite apple painting yet. I have a box that I set everything up in to paint. Sometimes while I'm arranging, I'll push a bunch of things to the back as a kind of staging area. These apples were there lined up in about this order and they looked so nice with all the various colors together. So I pushed everything else away, put them in exactly the order I wanted, and proceeded to paint. One thing I really like about it is that with the background a gray, the eye really focuses on the mix of color.
5 comments:
Beautiful painting. Composition and color variety are right on as usual. Would you be willing to photograph a set-up from the perspective you paint it from, and then post it along with the finished painting? It would be very helpful to see how you interpret the subject. I have learned more in the last two months reading your blog than I did in most college art classes.
Carol . . .yesss! Another terrific piece! I am interested in seeing your 'box' you mentioned in this post. I have been playing around with one, but am seeking other ideas. Most interested in seeing your set up! Thanks!
I think this is my favorite of your apple paintings so far.
I love the one yellow apple in the back row.
And you're absolutely right about the gray.
great variety of colors on your apples! every apple has its own character of colors and you have definitely captured that.
Your last point was my first reaction. The first time I ever heard about having a box set-up for staging (in a book by Pamela Kay - an artist who does a lot of still-life) I also remember reading that she favours a sort of taupe/neutral/warm grey background as it always enables the colour of the objects in the composition to read well as opposed to competing with the background.
On the other hand, one of the things I've liked about your paintings has been the use of sometimes unusual colours for background (eg the turquoisey blues) but that might be because I like those colours! I felt they worked very well when they were complementaries or analogous - as they have often been. However I'm wondering now maybe what I liked was the abstractness of the colour pattern.........
Anyway - either way I like what you do!
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