Saturday, February 21, 2015

Still Life Con Brio
20 x 24   Oil on Linen

Still Life Con Brio didn't come to me in a flash of inspiration. It began with my gallerist suggesting I do a painting demonstration at her gallery. It was to be done in the Christmas season so the idea of having red and green dominate the color scheme was a given. The music of the piece began to come to me. I like to think of the time spent conceiving a painting as its opening movement. The thoughts for this piece developed at a good pace, not too slowly, not too fast, an andante perhaps. The second movement, the demonstration itself, was an adagio con anima. I began by slowly expressing my thoughts and philosophy of painting. Slowly but with life, with feeling. That movement had a long cadenza of course so I could show off my technical skills (you can watch a short video of this movement on Vimeo). I came back each of the next two afternoons to work on the painting while chatting with a friend who watched as I worked. Now I was free to paint at my own pace, allegro con brio. The paint came flying off the brush at a lively pace, expressing the objects in the painting with vigor and vitality. Portraits of each object in the painting began to emerge, then each took its place, harmonizing with the others to create a gorgeous ensemble. The colors were bold and beautiful and the brushwork virtuosic. I was at my easel and nothing else in the world mattered.....