Bird Ornaments, Still Life Investigations, and Portrait Practice

This is simply a rambling of my brain, state of the studio, and pieces of progress.

December is just around the corner, and I’m having a lot of fun making bird ornaments for the family. Currently, I have about 4 plaster birds with copper beaks that I made from an original mold. I’m thinking a simple painted design on the tops of each bird with some minimal markings around the belly and throat areas.

I loved sculpting in clay and making molds in school, so this projects has allowed me to take a step back into some sculpture and past processes. Working with the abstraction of form is so different from painting, but always helpful to work those rarely used muscles every now and again.

Like a little bird, collecting stuff for the house :) Gathering natural elements and filling my studio space makes it feel like a home. Lately, I’ve been exploring some still life painting by contriving pieces from my collections together. While I love working with the figure, the still life allows for a slower investigation of composition, color, and the poetic mark making of each brush stroke. With this set up, I’m playing with creating circles of color and light sources. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about breaking away from work that comes from a personal emotional state and instead working objectively with colors and lights that have the ability to invoke a mood or feeling.

Specifically, I’m going for contrasting light sources - the cool window light mixed with warm candle light, creating color harmony by using large batches of complimentary colors that swirl around the picture plane - red and green. I also have some elements off to the side that I may add into the scene after the colors are put in.

Practicing the figure with a self portrait, copying one of my favorite painters, and contemplating painting an old family photo in the vein of Kanevsky. This image of my grandparents and older brother would look good in brush strokes! :)

As I work out the self portrait study, I’m thinking about how I could join the study with other still life pieces and light sources for a larger piece. Possibly light under water and colorful scarves and flowers.