Breakfast Experiment Painting

What in the world is a “Breakfast Experiment Painting,” you may ask? I will explain here soon. But first, a warm welcome to you and new readers too. If you’re interested in reading more about the purpose of this post and blog, you can read this link here. And, before I describe more about this painting, here’s the inspiration for it.

More Ancient Inspiration

As I shared in last week’s post, I am taking a class that includes a close look at some wonderful ancient frescoes from history. This week I’ll share another fresco that inspired me with this week’s painting. It’s entitled “Roman Fresco Still Life with Peaches.” It, like last week’s fresco inspriation, was created in 50 AD.

This fresco is so playful and, well, fresh to me. Why? I love the way it breaks so many rules of traditional painting. The shelves for each of the peaches are slanted. Don’t they look as if the peaches will tumble off the surface and into your lap? And, how about that pitcher of water? In art speak, the elipse on the top opening of pitcher does not line up in correct perspective at all. Compare the top of the pitcher to the bottom. It’s another example of an object in this fresco looking as if part of it may tip over.

As I understand it, this point of view is not considered wrong in the era it was created. Rather there are some specific theories that each object in a painting had it’s own perspective.

Breakfast Experiment Painting

In my painting this week, I decided to look at three different objects (egg cartons) from two different perspectives. So I stood at my easel to paint the luscious pink egg carton. And, I sat down to paint the other two egg cartons.

Here’s a photograph of the set up in my studio from the ‘standing’ point of view.

So in some ways, I didn’t exactly follow the idea of the fresco’s subjects. I simply painted this painting from two different points of view. How was this painting experiment? Challenging! Really really challenging. Here’s the painting.

It’s about 9 inches by 7 inches. And, since this is an experiment, I painted it on canvas paper. This study will probably take several weeks to completely dry. Here’s a detail. Can you see how thick the paint is?

There are several things I am doing differently here. First, I am taking my time and applying lots and lots of layers of paint. I really enjoyed the luscious feeling of applying the paint on existing layers of paint. That to me is about the closest thing to heaven on earth that exists. But this means I can’t really sell this painting until it’s completely dry. If you’re in love with this painting and want to buy it, contact me and we’ll figure something out!

Where am I headed with this experiment? Who knows! We’ll see. I’m grateful to have this time and season to think, practice and experiment these days. It’s the perfect antidote to shorter daylight and long, cool winter nights.

What’s Your Latest Experiment

How about you, gentle reader? Are you doing anything differently now that winter is here? Maybe hibernating or even experimenting too? Either way, I would love to hear from you. Please share what’s happening in your world in the comments below.