I’m still working on this – and it needs a lot of help yet. I’m painting on primed canvas taped to masonite at the moment. I’ll use it to cover a hand-bound book when it’s finished. Based on this image from Cezanne.
Van Gogh Lemons, Sep 12, 2015, Oil on Canvas, 10″ X 10″
Another round of lemons. Not really happy with these, but here they are. My inspiration for this one is here. And how about one more Van Gogh quote (my personal favourite):
“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
― Vincent van Gogh
Odilon Redon Lemon, Sep 6, 2015, Oil on Canvas, 10″ X 10″
Round two of ‘lemons painted by other people and now painted by me’. This one is courtesy of Odilon Redon – not someone that makes me think “still life” – but I was really taken by this image of his and was inspired to recreate it as my own. Too bad I completely failed to capture the sort of similarity of style I was looking for. On the bright side, at least I don’t have to worry about the negative impact of approaching perfection.
After my recent frustration with lemons I’ve decided to spend some time checking out how others have painted lemons. Here’s my version of one of Cézanne’s.
Cézanne Lemon, Aug 29, 2015, Oil on Canvas, 10″ X 10″
I love the way his fruit is practically outlined – I may have to play with that more. In my various Cézanne searches, I came across this quote:
“Style is not created through servile imitation of the masters; it proceeds from the artist’s own particular way of feeling and expressing himself.” – Paul Cézanne
Perhaps M. Cézanne would consider my painting based on his work pointless and I kind of like the irony. Makes me want to continue my ‘Lemons after Masters’ project.
Still Life, Aug 23, 2015, Oil on Canvas, 40″ X 30″
Finally finished this painting! At least I think it’s finished. I’m not thrilled with the lemons, but I’m pretty tired of them, so if they need revisiting, it will be down the road a little when I figure out how to fix them.
Just for fun, I made a gif of the process of the painting. It didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped – the colours in the individual photos were far brighter – but it does inspire me to consider doing time lapse or something similar of the next larger painting that I do.
Joseph Joseph, Jul 13, 2015, Oil on Canvas, 12″ X 12″
The Joseph Joseph utensils were painted over an old acrylic painting that was fairly flat, but still had some lumpiness to it. My intention was to keep the brushstrokes rough and simple. I used fairly strong lighting on it and was painting practically in the dark. I didn’t realize until later how dark it really was. I was using quite a lot of linseed oil and had horrible issues with glare from my easel lamp making it a frustrating painting experience. And now I’m on a quest for much better lighting for my easel.
Mickey, Jul 15, 2015, Oil on Gessobord, 8″ X 8″
I took on the Mickey bottle stopper quite spontaneously. I had planned to paint some colour swatches of some of my blues with white and black and when I finished that, I just kept going. I recently bought a couple of 8″ X 8″ Gessobords from Ampersand to see what I thought of them. I restricted myself to Payne’s Grey, Titanium White and a bit of Mars Black. Again, my goal was to paint quickly to keep my brush strokes fresh and not get bogged down by detail. Not a bad result. Of course I could pick it apart in a second, but overall I’m satisfied with it. And I have decided that I much prefer the texture and springiness of stretched canvas over this hard, slightly textured Gessobord. I have one more of them and will try again – perhaps my opinion will change after another try.
susanne semchuk 