Still Life with Old Silver

Oil on Panel 6″ X 6″

This is another limited palette study, this time using burnt sienna and ultramarine for the background and cloth, and raw sienna and ultramarine for the silver.

The particular white cloth I used (a napkin from our wedding last august) had a definite bluish cast.

The silver had a warmer, slightly greenish cast.

Since I’ve used both burnt and raw sienna separately with ultramarine, it struck me immediately that I could get exactly the colours I wanted, and the difference between them, by using them together in this painting, but not actually mixing the raw and burnt siennas together.

There are places where the separation of the raw and burnt sienna based greys is departed from, most notably on the front of the egg cup, where it reflects the cloth, and also a little touch on the cloth where it reflects the colour of the egg cup.

This is Michelle’s christening egg cup. It has a really nice quality to it, slightly tarnished but still bright.

The teaspoon doesn’t really have a story, it’s just a tea spoon. But it’s my favourite tea spoon.

I think it helps to be painting things that mean something to you sometimes. As much as these paintings I’m doing currently are technical value and limited palette exercises, I want to get something more into them. I’d like to get some kind of a feeling of the objects I’m painting too, not just a dry representation.

Most of these little paintings have a story. Even if that story isn’t known to anyone but me, I do hope that something of the feeling comes through.

Back to paintings