Began another honey jar painting. Feels like I’m beginning to paint for the first time, as though I haven’t done still life painting in eons, though I began one just a couple weeks ago. I have many questions as I look at my little set up. What a confusing, rich and complex cosmos a still life is. Got so thoroughly befuddled that I had to make a second smaller painting (above), focusing on just the jar alone, and find that even just the jar has so many baffling features. Elipses and corners and curving-away-from-you highlights …. While I figure out the small theatre stage of my complicated still life actors, I need to eat some honey. Need something to soften the shock!
So much to look at in so small a space. How did Chardin manage? It’s all I can deal with to attempt painting just a few little things.
Aletha Kuschan's Weblog 