Hydrangeas

10"x7" watercolour on 4-play plate Bristol

Talavera and Fruit

8"x8" watercolour on 4-ply plate Bristol

Lemon and teabag

5" x 8" watercolour on 4-ply plate Bristol

Variation in yellows 

8"x5" watercolour on 4-ply plate bristol 

Walter Vaes - Master of the still life.

I usually don't post about other artists - Walter Vaes will be my first.  I thought others might appreciate seeing these paintings as much as I have.  I stumbled across some images of his on the Artinconnu Blog a while back.  Since then, I'vescoured the internet and sadly could not find much more on this Belgian artist.  I did find an exhibition catalog from Interbook International - but was dissapointed to find that the only image in color was the cover.  I'm still glad I purchased it - so beautiful is the cover image.  To me he has a wonderful balance of realism and abstraction.  I've found a few more images lately and have added them here.  The final image is one of the black and white reproductions from the book.  Oh how I wish I could see it in color!

 Thank you for your wonderful works Walter Vaes!  You have left a great impression and set the bar rather high.

Tangerine Still Life II

finished drawing

I've opted for a less centered composition.

As I stated in the previous post, I'm taking more time for accurate drawing.  Here, I'm using a brush to find the center lines.  You can see in the above drawing that I've drawn this vertical center line and the horizontal line as well.

Now I'm ready to start laying in color.

Here as before, I've approached this by laying largest area and then progressed to the bowl.  I go to the bowl next because it's edges are neighbors to the negative space.  I want to blend those edges before they dry.

Using this type of paint - it's very easy to get a fluid blending to happen.  Because the paint dries so quickly, it's also easy to get dry brush effects.  I'm cognisant of where I want each effect to occur.

5" x 7" opaque watercolour on cold pressed Arches

detail

still room for two more sketches there...

Dipped in Chocolate

8" x 10" oil on linen panel


Strawberry and square shaped cinnamon marshmallow dipped in semi-sweet... mmmmm'!


detail

Almond Roca

8" x 10" oil on linen panel


This still life was also painted in the homemade still life box as described in the previous post. I really like seeing the shadow shapes so clearly.

detail (1)


detail (2)

Pomegranates

8" x 10" oil on linen panel

Happy New Year everybody! I continue with my series of still lifes. I find that painting these as opposed to plein air landscapes really works with my schedule and family life. I'm able to set up somewhere in the house instead of going off into the garage studio to paint. I'm isolated enough from my family as it is. I usually throw down a piece of black velvet which absorbs much of the light and makes for a nice value contrast.

detail (1)

I even pulled out the quinacridone red for this one. It worked nicely for some of the cooler reds.

Lemon Meringue Pie

14" x 11" oil on linen panel

detail