Flowers and Friends-Magnolias I

30″ x 24″
Oil on canvas

With this still life I was reminiscing about Dutch still life paintings. I remember as a kid viewing them at the Nelson Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City. For me this was a different approach. I usually plan out my paintings in my sketchbook. Carefully placing each element as well as noting the colors to use in this preliminary drawing. Then I grid this drawing as well as my canvas. This is to keep my element placement in sync with my drawing. Again carefully noting all predetermined object placement from my drawing to the canvas. I do all of this in great detail noting every critter, flower and predetermined colors for each including the background. This painting was going to be a first for me. I drug out all of my research photographs on flowers and critters. Along with my poor bug collection which is so bedraggled and beat up. I did this because I did not know what I wanted to include in this (first of its kind for me) composition. Normally I paint most of the background after I get everything oriented on the gridded canvas. For the background I start at the top left to right then move down for the painting. With this painting no prelim placement with color notes, no gridding. Out the window with all that normal prelim! With this painting I just placed a couple magnolias with an oil Crayola directly on the canvas. Then proceeded to work around them. I just started throwing in flowers and critters as the composition developed. Usually I try to see how many different critters I can place in my painting. Critterpolousa! In this painting I limited them. In order to grow as a Fine Artist I challenged myself to change my approach. It was completely out of my comfort zone. To use an old cliché my studio looked like a bomb went off.

What fun! Now that this painting is finished, my studio is straightened up. It’s time to destroy it with a new painting!