Pottery Bowl with Lemons - 6 x 6 inches - oil on canvas

Pottery Bowl with Lemons - 6 x 6 inches - oil on canvas - framed

Happy  New Year everyone!  I spent most of last week in bed with a nasty bug so the holidays were a bit of a blur.   I’m happy to start off 2017 feeling much better!

I have been invited to do a painting demonstration at the Leominster Art Association later this month.  They requested a still life so I’ve been thinking about what I’d like to paint.  I recently had a hankering to paint lemons (why?  not sure!)  so I paired them with this dark pottery bowl (made by my sister, Julie).

I chose a purple cloth because purple is the complementary color of yellow.  Also, the bowl is almost black but I see a lot of deep purple in the glaze.

As always, I started by photographing this set up from multiple angles and multiple arrangements.  At one point, I had lemons stacked inside the bowl.  In the end, I liked this composition the best.  It was very important to paint this from life as the reflections on the bowl are lost in the photograph as the color is too dark.

I started the painting by tackling the pottery bowl.  The base of the bowl reflects the purple cloth so I started with a dusty purple color.  I then added the lemon reflections and finally worked my way up to the rim.  Bowls, cups, plates, etc. can be tricky as it can be difficult to get them perfectly symmetrical.  I think I did a decent job on this one!  I finished with some bright highlights near the top of the bowl as it is quite shiny.

I painted the cloth next.  I first added the shadows to define the form and then the highlights opposite the shadows.  I painted the lemons once the cloth was in place and focused on the shadows first and finally the light side and the highlights.  

Considering I hadn’t painted for a while (between the holidays and then being sick), the whole painting came together pretty quickly so I was really pleased.  I’ll probably paint it once again shortly before my demo which is scheduled for Jan 17.

“Pottery Bowl with Lemons” is a 6 inch square painting framed in a wood floater frame (see additional photos below) and is available at Muffins on Main or directly from me at www.LaurieGMiller.com.