Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Lemon Slices




Yesterday was a painting marathon. I setup this still life for one of my students and painted along with them, painting from whatever angle I could find. I always let the students get the "good view" and I take whatever is left, but that in itself is a great lesson for me. As artists, we are often faced with less than ideal settings and situations and we have to find ways to "make it work" one way or another. If the composition doesn't work or the lighting is bad or the angles are awkward or the subject gets up and leaves, what can we do to fix it? The good news is that we have permission - aka artistic license - to do whatever it takes to make the painting work. Having a deep bag of artistic tricks, learned from dealing with many imperfect situations helps. In otherwords, learning how to best make lemonade from lemons. The other two paintings were done after class, where I could arrange the slices however I chose, stand wherever I wanted to get a good view. Interestingly enough, I like the first one the best, where I had to work dilligently from my big bag of tricks.
Lemon Slices 1,2, and 3
6x6" Acrylic on Canvas
For information or to purchase, contact patti@mollicastudio.com

4 comments:

mary maxam said...

these are outrageously beautiful and the light effects really inspiring

Patti Mollica said...

Thanks so much, Mary! I had to push the light effect, it wasn't so dramatic in real life. lighten here, darken there, coerce it to sing :-)

Angela Sullivan said...

These are all wonderful. Love your tidbits of advice. I just love the paint it like you see it or change it. That is what art is really about.

Patti Mollica said...

Thanks a lot, Angela... yes, the "make it work one way or another" philosophy... what other choice do we have:-)