Violets Watercolor
Violets, Contemporary still life, Watercolor on paper
Still life with three mandarins and a jug
Painting Summer Bouquet
Summer Bouquet, oil on canvas was painted in summer 2019.
Which I particularly love about the summers is the abundance of flowers in the garden. I usually like to have a morning stroll around the flower beds, see what is new and pick some flowers for the bouquet. Sometimes I would bring a twig from the forest or use some weeds picked among the flowers to put among the bouquet flowers.
And it is at that time that I already see the new painting I am going to paint. Although the hard work begins from that moment on, for a painting to be finished in situ questions have to be answered, one by one. Composition, colors, accents, textures…yet the best occurs when during work flow problems get solved by themselves. Itbis that type of painting when brush seems to paint on its own, yet the painting proceeds to the best possible direction. Which needs a lot of former study and hard work to be accomplished before even starting the canvad, yet is the most rewarding and happy moment for the painter.
And this canvas is among those painted seemingly by itself. Giving me the joy of creation I worked on it during last summer. The size is big enough that looking at it one gets immediately the same feeling as if the real bouquet would be in the room, wrapping our senses in the song of summer colors and shapes……..
Coffee cup and books
Coffee cup and books, painting detail from my new still life in making. Can’t wait to finish it!
The Sweet Afternoon
The sweet afternoon was among the pieces I’ve admired the most at the De Chirico exhibition at Palazzo Reale in Milan this November. Definitely one of the most mind blowing exhibitions I’ve seen in a couple of years. It is that feeling that you may go home from the museum, but the artworks come, in a way , with you. I believe it is a huge privilege to be able to see artists works from a lifetime span in a continuous setting , curated and explained in a most fascinating way. I guess the closest approximation of what a talk with the artist could have been. And this could have been a tremendously interesting conversation. But then, on the other hand, how could a painter ever tell more as his painting can? Even more so as de Chirico is definitely a painter of solitude. And the solitude is the feeling I bear with me, too, all the time. It is the state I love and need the most when I work. It is the feeling I need to contemplate, It is the ultimate state of mind giving me peace. I guess this is the reason I love de Chirico painting that much. In The Sweet Afternoon the solitude is literally inhabiting the lonely piazza, a certain enigma of afternoon siesta is in the air. The trembling of the hot air in the piazza comes just to the open window where biscuits wait, neatly arranged on the tray, suggesting the warm proximity of somebody. Mediterranean siesta is the time of the afternoon when heat empties the piazzas, streets and parks. when people spend a couple of hours at home, hidden before the heat, public life disappears and turns towns into great solitude. My still life evolved fromthe blue tray and biscuits. Mine are biscuits with lemon glaze I’ve backed , and there are my violets on the table, for I always have to have flowers around me. And I have to have brushes, palette knifes and tubes of oil color. All that arranged on my table by the window, together with the ticket from de Chirico exibition in Milan. The view offers a landscape that continues into the green color of the table. Just my way of solitude.
Pictures above:
The Sweet Afternoon, Tamara Jare after de Chirico, 2019, oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm
The Sweet Afternoon, Il pomeriggio soave (Le Doux Après-midi), de Chirico, 1916, oil in canvas, Collezione Peggy Guggenheim, Venice. Photo taken by me at the de Chirico exibition in Palazzo Reale, Milano.
Rudbeckia contemporary still life oil on canvas
Painting this contemporary still life oil on canvas was a real joy. For this small nature morte I used palette knife and brushes to capture a Rudbeckia bouquet from my garden. Yellow color of flowers and green color of the table cloth were so strong, and there was a pink vase, all together making a vivid nature morte composition. I wanted to keep this contemporary still life oil on canvas simple and clean. Playing with textures and color main aim was to represent joy of summer colors. Note the patterns of the table cloth, the trembling background and strong yellow flowers arranged with some grasses. And the blue patches, just to mirror the blue sky….. And an interesting detail, the pattern used in the green table cloth appears also in some of my Garden series watercolors. Check the previous blog post: Garden with blue colors. Thinking about the table cloth representing garden and the garden being just a table cloth with patterns of nature…..
Bouquet still life
Bouquet no. XVI
Bouquet no. XVI , some reflections
I still work hard on capturing the subtle moment of a gaze. A moment when I feel trembling of the summer light among the petals of a flower. When a small reflection on the porcelain vase reminds me there have been summers like this. When I know there will be colors like today, this tiny little flower will be reborn next July again,and the sky will be as blue as today. But newer again there won’t be that feeling I have today, never again there won’t be that mingling of the late afternoon summer light like it is today at that hour of the late July afternoon……. Analyzing the croquis of all those feelings, using all the colors, brushstrokes I could to catch them, I decided to title this work in a numerical way, building an archive of captured moments ordered in a sort of a scientific way, Bouquet no. XVI ,just to save them in an unpredictable, visual way…
