"Donut Break" (oil on stretched canvas; 12" x 16")

click here to buy

Still life setup for "Doughnut Break"

"Blueberry Pie Party" (oil, 12" x 16")
sold

Last Thursday night, I was giddy with happiness.  I will tell you why.  In one of the last classes of the winter term, my teacher, John Murry, set up two very different still lifes: one with a blueberry pie and the other with donuts.  I got stuck with the pie, candles, and red colander and had to struggle with the painting, wondering why anybody would put a colander on a celebratory spread.  The lucky group with the donuts had fun, all producing expressive, yummy-looking paintings.  I was sore.

I had forgotten about the experience, having sold the blueberry painting and all, until I saw what John had brought for the class--donuts and more donuts!  He bought so many that he said the lady employee at the donut shop looked at him funny.  Well, we behaved and didn't touch any.  There were other things to eat after all.  The teacher kindly baked a peach cobbler for the class; a student brought a big bottle of wine and crackers.  It was the last class of the school year.  We have learned and grown much thanks to John.  Time to party!

"Donut Break" painted itself, really.  When you are excited about the subject, the hand holding a brush seems to dance on the canvas.  Look at the difference between the donut painting and the blueberry pie one.  The old painting appears restrained, whereas the new painting is brimming with expressive strokes.  The former looks correct, while the latter looks happy.  Which party would you rather go to?  Which dessert looks more appealing to you?  A donut, anyone?

"Blueberry Pie Party" (oil on canvas; 12" x 16") sold

sold

Still life setup 

I am getting used to a complicated setup, so I wasn't flabbergasted at the above arrangement by my teacher John Murray in yesterday's class.  It was the presence of the red colander with the brass-knobbed lid that bothered me.  I knew that it belonged there for color.  But who puts a colander, pretty or not, in the middle of a setup, which is obviously celebratory!  Ah, perhaps it was used to drain blueberries.  In my painting I deliberately omitted its perforations.

There were other issues too.  John noticed that I put the still life too high in the picture again.  Why do I keep doing that?  I introduced a suggestion of the second vertical plane, which kind of helped.  Still I had a lot of empty square inches of foreground to deal with.  I added one more candle and moved the candles to point toward the subjects.  The way the white-handled knife was sitting on the small plate, pointing out of the picture, was troubling too, but it stayed there so that I would have seven, not six, candle-like objects.  Always go for the odd number.

Do you know what?  The biggest challenge actually had nothing to do with my painting.  John had set up another arrangement with yummy-looking donuts.  The students who chose to paint them were having such success that I was turning green with envy.  No awkward colander to worry about.  No empty foreground to struggle with.  Just fun and games.

Now as I look at the finished painting, I see an elegance in its scheme.  The painting is all about the three primary colors--red, blue, and yellow.  It isn't a fun, loud party we are looking at.  It is a quiet celebration of food and a shared life.