New still life painting.
Here is the setup. A concrete block and some gym chalk. Sometimes the motivation behind a painting is strictly technical challenge. The setup is a little atypical for me in terms of value. Usually my setup is mostly light to support a dark focus, or mostly dark to support a light focus. This painting is nearly 50/50. My goal was to--within this 50/50 arrangement--achieve focus on the pair of fruits on the right side. I'm using the concrete block as a tool of value towards this end (the focal fruits shine in the dark side, while the mirrored pair is more subtle against the light side). I'm using the chalk as tool to show show depth: without this element in this table-at-eye-level setup, the placement of objects would be slightly ambiguous. With the chalk, the we can judge the spacial relationship to the foreground (cast shadow on cloth) as well as its proximity to the block (cast shadow on block), and then it follows that we know the position of both pairs of fruit. Every decision is made intentionally.
