The Self-Isolation Residency 11th April 2020: Day 13

Yesterday I mentioned how interested I was in a certain portion of the painting, the object on the wall behind the easel ( top left) and how I felt that it might be the inspiration for a painting in it's own right. Whilst I've been painting today I've been looking at some of the details that I've included and realised that I am not just creating one self portrait/ still life, but that there are actually a series of still lifes going on in this one image. So this evening instead of looking at the whole painting I've decided to 'isolate'. appropriate word there, four of these vignettes for closer study. What the first one is I have already said I won't identify at this time and I'm hoping that the other three are self explanatory so I won't worry to much about naming them.

The second object ( top right) also appear in the painting at the very top of this blog, although more in silhouette. It isn't quite finished in this version just yet, but I hope that it's already recognisable  as a globe. As with everything else included in this painting it says something about me, indeed this is one of the more common historical portrait objects and in my painting the meaning is just the same; travel. I spent quite a while deciding whether or not to include this as the object to show my love of travel, I had considered for quite some time including my passport in the painting. considered it to be a 21st century equivalent of including the globe, but the more I thought about it the more I had issues with it.  The main issue with including my passport was actually the issue that made me rethink my whole approach to the painting in the first place, I've mentioned it before, it is the idea that I include all of these character traits but that I do it in such a way that they appear to be natural within the painting; as though they should just be there in the studio. the idea of including my passport just lying around in my studio seemed to false to me and so in the end I decide to go with the class image of the globe. Actually if you look closely and if I paint it well enough there is another message within the globe. 

The next detail (above left) I have included in this review purely because I love it! In a way it forms a little still life all by itself. As I've mentioned I have done a lot of still lifes previous and I've also taught a lot of lessons based around the still life. One of the things that constantly comes up in these classes is how to paint drinking glasses glasses and glass bottles so I've done this many times before but im not sure that I've ever done it more successfully before and certainly not on a 2 inch scale. The trick to painting glass is lightness, think of the glass as almost insubstantial, in some ways don't try to paint the glass, just paint the light that falls on it.

And so to my final miniature still life (above right) the book I've just put down.  Once again this is one of those staples of the still life repertoire,  the open book, how does one paint all of those pages?  Well the answer is quickly, with a single brush stroke and lots of confidence, let ethe paint and the brush do the work for you.

this is just a quick insight into some of the datils of the painting and how they are painted. I hadn't intended for this page to be a tutorial when it started out but it has become that, however that's actually given me another idea. At some time on a future post, probably after I have finished this painting, I will go through a tutorial with images of how to paint some of these objects from scratch for any of you that are interested.