Still Making Art

Life Gets Better as I Get Older

Tag Archives: painting candlelight


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New Day 20 – “Nana’s Cookie Jar” Finished

Well – I’m done!

I’m calling this “Nana’s Cookie Jar” because the cookie jar was the item around which I created the still life. And, of course, this is my grandmother’s cookie jar. This sat on a small bureau in the dining room of my grandmother’s summer house at Merrymount on Lake Winnipesaukee. My sister, brother, and I spent our entire summers there throughout most of our childhood. Nana made cookies often, and we would sneak into the dining room when she was napping to steal cookies. There was an art to getting the lid off this cookie jar without the lid making its very tell-tale grating noise. Fortunately Nana also had a larger cookie jar on the same bureau that had a lid more quietly removed.

This cookie jar is one of the few things I have that belonged to Nana. I treasure it.

Here’s the finished product. It’s 24″ x 16″ – oil on linen. [Note: This is a pre-varnish photo, so the blacks may have matte areas that vanish when varnished.]

IMG_7857 - Nana's Cookie Jar - pre varnish

 

 

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Day 18 – A Lot of Painting and a Lot of Wiping Off

Whew! I did a lot of painting these past few days. I have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off from work. I find having a nice stretch of free time is my best time for painting. So…I worked away.

This was a difficult section for me. I often find that the shadows on cloth are the hardest for me to get the color and the tone right. I did a ton of wiping off and doing over, and lots of using my color checker (see drawmixpaint.com). Usually I’m off because my tone is way too light. And for a cloth that’s basically yellow, the dark shadows are primarily green! And..there’s a lot of subtle colors based on the cool light that’s coming in from the left. In the end I solved my problem when I realized I needed a touch of veridian. The white looks off because the rest of the painting isn’t there yet. Of course I could end up having to tone it down – you never really know if it right until you get the neighboring paint down. But I think I’ve got the hardest bits done now.

FYI – I’ve opened a very basic website – primarily just a gallery – which is, if you are interested: julietbellart.com.

Here’s my progress to date.

Two Candles - 5-3-17


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Day 17 – May Day! Moving Along

I thought I had done quite a bit on my painting from the last posting, but I see I’m still just slogging along. The bottom dark is not right yet, and touch up is always needed, but here’s my current progress.

I’m anxious to get this one done because when I was out on the west coast visiting my daughter I found a whole collection of table cloths and pottery I want to use in my next paintings. I can’t wait to start the next still life set up. The staging of a scene is almost the best part of painting. That, and the magic of turning blobs of paint into something they are not. I just love that!

Two Candles 5-1-17


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Day 15 – Painting Challenges

Some days when I paint I am nervous the whole time. Today was one of those days, painting the candlelight. One really does not need to be nervous as one can always just wipe the day’s painting off completely and start again. I nearly did this with the candles today. It was a big struggle to get the candle glow right. I’m still not sure it’s correct, but I’m letting it sit for now. Until the body of the painting is done, one doesn’t know for sure if the tone right. I also find it hard to get the colors right. But…we’ll see.

Here’s the latest progress. The black is wet and reflective in some places, and dry in others. This gives a weird blotchy effect which is remedied once the painting is dry and varnished.

Two Candles 4-19-17