3 Paintings of White Cups and Pitcher

White Mug and Spoon

April 17, 2009

8" x 8"

Oil on Panel
$75.00

Mug and Spoon on Purple

June 19, 2009

10" x 10"

Oil on Panel
Sold

White Pitcher

June 19, 2009

8" x 10"

Oil on Canvas
$100.00

This post is long past due, and these paintings almost seem old to me. I have therefore grown a bit of distance between myself and these paintings. By that I mean there is a bit of a distance between the experience of actually creating the work which deals with emotions and struggles, and now brings me to the fact that they are paintings with no one really knowing about my personal investment into them. Time causes distance. I am no longer close to these paintings, so I may be a bit more objective to them. Two things happen to me and my relationships with my paintings. I hang them in my living space and I either grow to love them and to see all the beauty there is in them, which I then interpret them as good paintings. Or I grow to loath them and want them out, then I start to see them as mere exercises in order to gain technique or experience to bring me to those 'good paintings'. All of my paintings seem to have a purpose in their existence, and sometimes they just provide a good ground or texture for a new painting to go over top.

The above paintings I am growing to love and at first, especially while I was painting them there was a struggle. I was fighting time constraints and the fact that I need just something to paint. I didn't care if they turned out, I just wanted to participate in the act of painting.

Recently, I had just over an hour to paint and I thought it would be a good idea to paint a single strawberry. It was not a good idea. Don't paint a single strawberry unless you have lots of time and are about to delve into the realm of photo realism. Afterwards I went and researched paintings of strawberries and sure enough, they all appear to be quite realistic. Yes, you must paint most of the little seedy bits, and you have to put in the shadows and highlights of those little seeds or else it just doesn't look right. I have two painting attempts at a strawberry that are now going to become grounds for other paintings. But at least I know something that I didn't know before.