Still life with blue bottles and lemons – step-by-step

Still lifes are usually my least favorite topic for painting; I’d much rather paint people or landscapes.  But sometimes still life paintings are easier to work into my schedule or to deal with the weather.

I selected this still life based on one that I recently saw in a musuem show.  I liked the quiet contemplative nature of the subject and layout.  (The other one did not have any blue bottles or lemons in it, but it did have a twig in it.)

I played around with the set up for a while and eventually removed most of the objects that I had selected.  It’s very simple.  The size is 18 x 24, oil on canvas.

You will notice that I ended up cropping the top of the painting.  As you look at the steps, you’ll see where I leave things in, leave things out, blur some lines.  I personally don’t care much for photo-realism but that’s my opinion.  This was painted on a toned canvas and I spend about three days on it for a total of about ten hours.

I decided to paint the background first in order to better define the objects.  

Final still life with detail.  My photo editing program is making this a little too blue and too cool, but you get the idea.  Notice on the detail image how I’ve carried the colors of the objects into their shadows.  And a lemon is not just yellow, it’s a multiple of colors.  One of the true advantages of painting still lifes is that they make you really look at and observe what you are seeing.