Saturday, November 22, 2008

Elizabeth set up a great still life for her last workshop. Squashes, pumpkins, gourds, it was beautiful. Rich, colorful, joyful, lovely rhythms, big sweeping motions, a late Mozart symphony. I knew I had to paint it. Our big still life table is on wheels so I moved it to my studio, then continued to work on other projects that were already started. "It'll keep" I thought. A week or so later I got started. There were two pomegranates, I love painting pomegranates. They were sitting next to each other looking in different directions, very nicely composed, but I couldn't resist breaking one open. A freshly opened pomegranate is so luscious and so juicy the sight of it makes your mouth water, how could Persephone resist eating a few seeds? I had to paint and I had to paint fast, before it started to turn brown. A few broad washes set the composition then I jumped in and painted the pomegranates. Beautiful cool whitish flesh dotted with a wealth of garnetlike seeds. What a marvel of nature, what a marvelous thing to paint. Surround it with a tough rich red skin, drive the knife through it for dramatic effect. How delightful, what fun, "lucky me" I thought "to be an artist." Just enough light left to put in that little gourd in the front. Wonderful, exhilarating, satisfying...not a bad days work.....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I saw those pomegranates as Elizabeth was picking them up in the supermarket!

You're right, the seeds are like garnets.

Good job expressing that sense of satisfaction at the end of a day's good work.