jayme del rosario | sketchblog

I’m now in upstate NY for the rest of the summer where I’ll be concentrating mostly on still life paintings, as well as work on a few landscape studies, sketches and paintings “alla prima”. I spent most of the time today looking through a friend’s still life objects and figuring out what objects/subject to tackle first. In the academy, we’ve mostly been working from the live model and even though the subject of composition is thoroughly discussed and analyzed by our instructors, setting up a still life is much more time consuming than I could ever have imagined. (I found out that Chardin would spend hours setting up his still life compositions).

After selecting and editing which objects to put in the composition, looking at some master still life painters and paintings, and doing A LOT of rearranging, I finally reached something simple enough yet interesting as a composition. Alas! now the light is gone and I will have to start tomorrow; but this allows me some time to gesso and prime some supports for subsequent paintings.

In my research, I learned a few things about how to set-up a still life.

• Pay attention to positive AND negative shapes
• Keep the composition balanced
• Do spend serious time and thought into setting up the objects; take as much time rearranging things around as you need
• It helps to look at still life paintings of old masters to get some ideas on how you can arrange things
• Paint subjects you are drawn to

I have also set up a still life for the evening in which the light source is artificial and controlled. I’ll post my poster studies for both and write about my next step in tomorrow’s entry.

I’m back from my “blog sabbatical”! I had a few illustrations to work on for my freelance work and I also enjoyed a small, small break to recharge before a two month “retreat” upstate. I’ll be spending the rest of the summer in a converted church to paint still lives, landscapes, and perhaps some of the locals from town who I meet along the way. If anyone knows of any great places to see some artwork by the Hudson, please let me know.

Right at the end of my break, I was fortunate enough to take a 3-day Still Life workshop with Sarah Lamb. It’s my second attempt at a still life, as I’ve been working mostly from the figure. One of the most difficult things for me was to attempt to achieve a finished painting in 3 days since I am used to longer poses. It was great to push myself to paint at this speed, draw with a paint brush and approach things from a more mass-oriented way rather than linear. It exercised different muscles, so to speak and I walked away feeling a lot more confident with the paint brush. Sarah Lamb was a wonderful teacher and her still life paintings are beautiful — well-drawn, painterly while still capturing the subtlety in her subject matter.

I learned a lot about composition in regards to setting up objects for a still life (which, in my opinion, is much harder than it looks and is nothing like setting up the figure). We also discussed cropping, Ted Seth Jacobs, field effect, materials and color. We started with a poster study, moved on to an quick drawing/underpainting and pushed it to a finished painting as much as we could in the three days. This is how far I got in the painting. The glare makes parts of the painting a little difficult to see in my photo, but alas…

Still Life with Gourd

I start a 4-day portrait painting class with Kate Lehman tomorrow and beginning this Friday I’m on my own upstate where I’ll have space and quiet for 2 months (well, and freelance deadlines). I’ll also be back to posting regularly. Hope everyone had a great 4th of July celebration!