"Coffee Break", 12x9, oil on panel
Lately, I have decided to work on improving my drawing skills, since drawing is such an integral part of painting well.
Today, I wanted to work on ellipses, because they are such an important part of still life painting. Actually, they are an important part of all styles of painting!
Take a lake filled with waterlilies, for instance. You simply cannot paint those waterlilies successfully unless you can paint an ellipse and understand how they change with perspective. Here is one of Claude Monet's famous waterlily paintings:
Notice how the shape of the flower changes as it goes back in perspective.
So I set up a still life with some ellipses in it, and worked on it all day. Yes indeed those things are hard to paint accurately! (At least for me.)
I love the little French sugar bowl and lid that my daughter-in-law gave me a while back, and so I included that in the picture as well as some Ghirardelli chocolate! Yum.
In the end, I think I made some progress in painting ellipses from an overhead perspective.
Maybe, I'll work on some water lilies next....
This painting is available through my website, under the "little gems" collection. Or send me an email at maryannejacobsen@aol.com if interested in purchasing a little coffee and chocolate.
