workshop

                             values

.                           cropping

Taking a four-day online workshop with Susan Abbott on constructing a still life.

This is my homework.

I love still lifes but I don't paint many because I am very bad at setting them up. They almost always look contrived-- sometimes I'd get lucky and hit on a good arrangement, but I'd like to know what I'm doing.

Susan is the perfect teacher for this: she's very rigorous. Which is good.

Before class we collected props relating to a theme--mine is potting, kinda--and for homework we did sketches to decide on the arrangement of the objects and the orientation of the page; and value sketches.

It's a bit of "work," or maybe more accurately a process, but very enjoyable and engaging, and I hope fruitful!

Tomorrow: color.