“A vase, mint and lemon”
Week 36 already. And autumn is coming quickly. The weather is becoming less predictable and stops me more and more from painting outdoors. The great thing about it is that I can focus more on painting still life, which I like more and more.
I even set up in my studio (formerly known as living room) a still life corner. I have a sculpture stand on which I placed a DIY shadow box. Next to it, on one side is a tall adjustable lamp and on the other side is my H frame easel. This way I can do still life painting using the sight size technique.
For this week I intended to do something using a little vase I bought years ago from Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. I filled it up with mint picked from my garden, and in front I placed a lemon; obviously because I think mint goes well with lemon (as in lemonade).
Initially I wanted just to paint the objects, but, as I was playing with the light I came across that gorgeous shadow, so I decided to make the shadow the main subject.
I didn’t use medium, just turpentine, except for the vase, where I used just a touch of diluted de Mayerne.
For the shadow I used a mixture of burnt umber, neutral grey and transparent brown oxide from Michael Harding.
So, here it is:
“A vase, mint and lemon”
Oil on linen.
24 X 30cm (10” X 12”)
