Still Life and Slow Life

It has been a quiet week in Manzanita, to borrow the opening phrase from Garrison Keillor and adding a local twist. It feels like I have been slogging through mud in the studio. I decided that my first formal challenge painting would be a still life. It makes sense as it is winter and getting out to paint en plein air is iffy. I have at least two goals when setting a still life up. I need to make it something that will push my learning. I also need to make it something that may potentially sell as that is part of the challenge too. Not always the best combination as sometimes a learning still life isn't terribly exciting. I gave this set up a lot of thought and am working with what I have. I am acquiring an interesting collection of still life objects and have a good starter selection. As space is a consideration, most of the objects have to have some sort of meaning. So, here is what I set up:

The lighting is not quite so bright on the plaster cast in reality but the general idea is there. I quickly ran into to studio challenges. I just cannot cram this set up in on the smaller canvases I have. I decided to order larger ones, 18"x24" to be exact. I realized that this is the size we used to do our charcoal drawings so that is probably why it feels more comfortable to me than a 9x12" canvas. It is a lot of canvas to cover though and rather large for what I would consider a study. It will be a good challenge.
The other issue I ran into was lighting. I lit the still life and really liked what I saw. The problem was I hadn't lit my easel. No matter where I put the easel light it affected the lighting on the still life in a way I didn't like. After trying a few different light bulbs with different light specs, I finally settled on a full spectrum bulb from Ott light. I had to pin a fabric drape and put a piece of foam core behind my easel to prevent as much of the light as possible from washing out the still life. The new canvas, which I got on sale from Dick Blick came yesterday so I am finally ready to start painting...on Tuesday . Tomorrow I have appointments and errands to run. I might be able to get in and do a thumbnail painting of the still life but I kind of doubt it. I do plan to do a thumbnail or two before starting.
All of this fussing around sort of reminds me when I put my first warp on my big AVL loom. I had never made a warp before and it took a few days to get it on and it was full of errors. After putting on and weaving off several warps, I had it down to a few hours (I like fine warps) with an error showing up on only an occasional warp. I have a feeling that this will be like that. By the end of the challenge year I hope it will be a much smoother, and quicker process. After my summer of dyeing all day every day (see my Renee Weaves! blog archives) a couple of years ago I could get a dyepot going in about two minutes flat from scratch. There is hope!
Speaking of hope, the weather forecast for this week shows that we will be having a couple of warm sunny days. Could get as high as 60 degrees F! That means, if the tides are right, I will be able to get out and do some more plein air. Have to make hay, or paint, while the sun shines here. Actually, I have seen some incredibly beautiful paintings done on overcast or foggy days but I don't think I can take the cold at this time of the year.
I did get to enjoy a life drawing session today. I really, really miss that part of school. Frequent access to models, and the high quality instruction and standard, were quite a luxury. I am hoping to eventually make enough money through various enterprises to be able to hire my own models.
Well, I will have progress to show next week so please stay tuned!
-Renee