New painting, just finished still life painting, White Roses on my Window, oil on canvas, 50x70cm.
Currently working hard on a special project, yet this crisp white roses bouquet was just too appealing painting motif to let it fade away…..now back to my project 😉
Sketch in watercolor:
I’ve been cleaning my studio a bit these days and look what have I found! A sketch of mine, from 2017. I still remember how tender looked the snowdrops, just picked, in an eggshell porcelain vase from Japan. I made a small watercolor after this sketch and yes, I ‘ve painted a snowdrops bouquet in oil, too! Can’t wait to spot the first snowdrop of this spring in the garden !!!!
Cup and saucer by the window finished today!
I am happy with my new still life. Oval format of the painting is the one I love to work with.
Yet this time it has been extremely difficult for me, as in January I’ve lost my dear friend. The one we’ve been friends since we’ve been girls, the one we’ve had billion coffees together to talk life, careers, families, kids, gardening……But on the other hand working on has been the best remedy for my broken heart.
I’ve picked the objects for this still life intuitively, placed them by the window in my studio. One cup with saucer, remaining there in the room, by the window, overlooking landscape, hills and sky. It is sunny outside, the cup and saucer shine in the sun light of January as I keep asking Where is the boundary between outside and inside, sorrow and sun, now and then, here and the future………..
Still life with cabbage, garlic, quince and flowers was finished in fall, 2019.
Setting this still life was easy, sort of impulsive. I’ve been following the strong colors of some fruit, vegetables in the kitchen. It has obviously started with the purple violet cabbage, just gorgeous color calling me to paint it. By the way, anthocyanins are the pigments giving the red cabbage its strong color. Then garlic, crisp white but with slight violet shades. Ripe yellow quince. Flowers from the garden. And the blue glass for the smaller bouquet! Sunlight in fall is special, soft and warm, giving special nuances to objects. And in an ununderstandable way telling the year has just turned around, the winter coming to end the eternal cycle for this year. I guess this was just the mood I’ve been in painting this still life. And I am quiet happy with how has it turned out, catching all those strong colors, but in a way calming them down, playing with background of the painting.
Anthocyanins (also anthocyans; from Greek: ἄνθος (anthos) “flower” and κυάνεος/κυανοῦς kyaneos/kyanous “dark blue”) are water-soluble vacuolar pigments that, depending on their pH, may appear red, purple, blue or black. Food plants rich in anthocyanins include the blueberry, raspberry, black rice, and black soybean, among many others that are red, blue, purple, or black. Some of the colors of autumn leaves are derived from anthocyanins.[1][2] from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthocyanin
Anthocyanins belong to a parent class of molecules called flavonoids synthesized via the phenylpropanoid pathway. They occur in all tissues of higher plants, including leaves, stems, roots, flowers, and fruits. Anthocyanins are derived from anthocyanidins by adding sugars.[3] They are odorless and moderately astringent. from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthocyanin
Three lemons still life just finished!!
Art studio painting in progress
Absolutely heartbroken, losing my dear close friend, I saw the world around me dissolving in small patches hidden behind the tears. With all the will power I could squeeze out of me, I’ve started to rearrange these patches back into pictures, giving colors to life and hope to a new dawn.
Still life, work in progress, oil on canvas
Snowdrops are among the first flowers of spring in our country. No matter how cold the winter might be, they would find their way to show up, always. Each spring snowdrops paint whole white carpets under trees .What a view!
But there is much more diversity in these uniformly white galaxy as one could assume at a first glimpse.These white flowers may change shape,their pattern is far from uniform,mutations provide new shapes. But the sad truth is all these variants are mostly not stable in nature. So it actually is a hard work to cultivate a Galanthus nivalis cultivar of even a slight difference. And the good news? Once stable form will propagate with bulbs-by means of Fibonacci sequence which means:0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89 etc!
Anyhow, the first snowdrops bouquet each year brings the promise of warmer times to come. Tiny flowers themselves make just a small bouquet that doesn’t last much time, so flower shops usually don’t keep them. It was quite a surprise as I got a small white galanthus bouquet, nicely wrapped in red paper! I painted this still life immediately, presenting white flowers in red paper in crystal glass vase. Definitely a Galanthomania of my own!!!!
Last week I ‘ve happened to get a wonderful vintage art book. I’ve passed by a bookshelf, in public space, with a note attached on it. It read: Take with you as many as you want 🙂 Bring some you don’t need any more:)
The bookshelf was rather full. It seems people are energetically following Ms. Condo and books obviously aren’t very sparkly possession for many. Anyhow, I’ve looked closely as one never knows what can be hidden in such a library full of thrown away books. It turned out I really absolutely had to save one book, the one sitting alone among many How to do manuals, Cookbooks, Crime novels and Love stories. It hasn’t appeared as something like a new book, with the cardboard envelope even a bit torn down. But then inside this envelope, there were six lovely notebook like booklets. As I’ve read the title I’ve decided it goes with mes. For as said before: ”what is one man’s crap is another man’s treasure” .
The book is actually first part of four books series by Schmiedeberg Blume. The first tome is titled Grundlagen der Technik und Komposition and it is basically a textbook for painters. Printed in Berlin in 1927!
I am extremely happy I’ve rescued this book, reading it now and enjoying it’s vintage illustrations. Noticing some things haven’t changed that much in the last 100 years.
Have a look at some illustrations, aren’t they just marvelous?
Tamara
Ps: This weekend picking some books from my library to put on that bookshelf, hope to make someone happy 🙂
A small pine tree trimmed as bonsai has captured my attention. There is all the beauty of a real grown up tree caught in a bonsai tree, put on a display to admire. And one can admire the nature of the tree species itself. Yet also the virtue of the one growing the bonsai. Painting this still life I’ve used vivid color palette.I wanted to catch the wonderful natural colors of a pine tree (Pinus sylvestris). And I’ve tried to make it really simple, just not to take any attention away from the simple meditative beauty of a small bonsai tree..
“There are no borders in bonsai. The dove of peace flies to palace as to humble house, to young as to old, to rich and poor. So does the spirit of bonsai.”
― John Yoshio Naka
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