Dear Subscribers,
 
Greetings!
 
New still life.
The setup:

Initially this probably doesn't look like a promising setup for a successful composition. There all sorts of things "wrong" with this...everything in a line, objects kissing (egg and tape), etc. In my mind's eye I was seeing a way of painting this scene that could make it interesting. I wasn't totally sure it would work, but you don't know until you try, so......
 
First stage:

Blocking it in.
 
Next stage:

 
Next stage:

 

 
And the finished painting, "Measure" (8x10):
 

 
(Click through the image above to get to the Facebook "Like" button!)
 
I'm feeling re-energized in the still-life department lately. I've been trying to prove to myself that it's not what I paint but how I paint it. It's been liberating.
 
Wednesday night's progress on the figure at Safehouse Atelier:
 

 
I spend that session revising the face, shoulders and upper torso, adding light and fixing edges.
 
The Schuler School of Fine Arts Holiday Exhibition is approaching (December 3rd and 4th). I've got three paintings for sale in this show:
 
       
 
Another weekly dose of Pressfield? Why not. It certainly helps me.
 

A PROFESSIONAL

         Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. "I write only when inspiration strikes," he replied. "Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'clock sharp."

         That's a pro.

         In terms of Resistance, Maugham was saying, "I despise Resistance; I will not let it faze me; I will sit down and do my work."

         Maugham reckoned another, deeper truth: that by performing the mundane physical act of sitting down and starting to work, he set in motion a mysterious but infallible sequence of events that would produce inspiration, as surely as if the goddess had synchronized her watch with his.

         He knew if he built it, she would come.
 
-Stephen Pressfield, "The War of Art" p.64
 
JUST SOLD!:

"Lamp & Wedge" (at Zoll Studio Exhibit this weekend)
 
For info on the oil still-life lessons I'll be offering (in Palo Alto, California) starting this January, email me.
 
Until next week,
 
David A. N. Cheifetz
www.davidcheifetz.com

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