Sunday, August 16, 2009

Peaches, Butter and Vanilla - SOLD

"Peach Cobbler?"
sold

6"x 8" Oil on gessoed board.

No, I did not make cobbler. I barely cut the peaches and ate them before they were too ripe, but it sure made me want cobbler. Hmmmm, cobbler or painting? I chose painting and am glad I did. I have painted many peaches before but I'm finally getting the peach fuzz thing right. I think this is my favorite so far. The vintage canister was a recent thrift store find and I centered the still life around it. It's very strange what things can inspire an artist.

The goal here was to focus on the left hand peach. I didn't want to mute the bright reds on the canister, but I knew that intense color could draw the eye away from the focal point. Composition was the device to direct the eye to the focal point. The right side of the vanilla bottle, the lines of the stick of butter and the blue stripe in the cloth all point to the peach and of course that spot where the stem used to be is the bull's eye. Then one's eye begins to wander to the canister, down the side to the right hand peach and follows the top edge of the cloth left back to the focal point. Let me know what your eye does. My other goal of the painting was to contrast the many textures.

12 comments:

Dean H. said...

Yum!! This really looks wonderful! Those peaches are perfection in their fuzziness.
I like your reasoning of mapping how the eye would move over the composition.

Diana Marshall said...

The canister reminds me of my childhood 'vintage' eh?!!lol, the peaches look delicous and juicy and looking at the painting makes me hungry for a peach cobbler.......

Edward Burton said...

Wonderful painting, Marilyn - great job with the composition, it really works.

Rick Nilson said...

Marilyn can paint fuzz on peaches. Wow. Good Trick! I like this one a lot. Let's just leave it at that and move on for goodness sake!

Dana Cooper said...

You are so manipulative...in a good way! I have so much to learn about setting up a still life...this is really lovely!

Debbie said...

Wonderful painting! Thanks for describing your plan for the composition, my eye went right up that blue stripe, to the peach, to the flower on the canister, then to the red top and back around. Great job!

Karen Hargett said...

Beautiful! I love the peach fuzz - what is your hint on that? The canister reminds me of my grandmother - in fact the entire painting brings back some wonderful childhood memories for me. Thanks for sharing!

myra anderson said...

This is extremely wonderfully beautiful!

Jennifer Young said...

Yes, you nailed it. The eye goes down the blue stripes to the peach's belly button. After I take a big juicy bite, I take time to savor the rest of the elements. At first glance I said to myself, "Don't tell me that's smaller than a 9x12". It has the monumentality of a larger piece. Very lovely and nicely orchestrated.

Marilyn M. King said...

It's been a busy week and I haven't had a chance to thank you all for visiting and leaving all the wonderfully encouraging comments. So THANK YOU ALL!!!!! It means a lot!

L.Holm said...

I love this, Marilyn. It makes me think of home and gives me a nostalgic feeling. and boy those peaches are peachy! great fuzz. :-D

Diane Hoeptner said...

Yes, ditto what Dean said: Fuzzy peaches! (: Nice job!