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For The Birds - An Original 12x16 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

For The Birds

 Lately I've been in the mood to try some larger still life paintings. While doing the smaller ones are a lot of fun and a great exercise, sometimes it's nice to stretch a little and do something a bit more involved. And that's exactly what I did. After returning home from doing a small plein air piece in the morning, I spent the rest of the afternoon gathering and arranging this still life. Like many of my still life paintings, the arrangement went through many changes, thoughts and ideas before coming together into something I wanted to paint. Below are a few step-by-step pictures of the painting coming to life. Since I'm running low on the number of images I can upload on my site I've had to combine a few of the steps into one image. Not my favorite way of having to do this, but it keeps me under my limit.

The first image was at the end of the day after I had finished setting up the still life. The only thing I had time for was to sketch in the shapes with a thin wash of (mostly) Transparent Oxide Red. In hindsight, I'm glad that's as far as I got on this first day. That image isn't cropped in, my drawing is. After thinking about it overnight, I decided to redraw the composition so it's a bit more pulled back. I had a few reasons for coming to this decision, but the main one was I wanted a bit more breathing room around the edges of the painting and I wanted to make sure the flowers in the background were visible. Since my wash from the night before was dry, I used a piece of charcoal to redraw everything and then went over that with thin washes of color as seen in the second image. These thin washes helped hide the lines from the previous nights work. Once I was happy with this composition, I was able to start in with a bit thicker paint and more refined colors and values.  I'm starting with the potted plant since it's close to my center of interest and I'm not sure how the flowers are going to do now that I took them from their sunny window. 

Hmm... these combined images get a little small. Sorry about that. I"ll have to figure out something better, but in the meantime, you can see how I moved from the flower-pot to the ceramic bird next to it in the first image. This also gave me the opportunity to finish off the background, since both the bird and plant are defined by it. By the time the second image was taken, I had just about finished the little white vase on a stack of books on the left edge of the painting. From here on out, I alternated from one side of the painting to the other to finish it up. 

For The Birds © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 12x16 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: $385 (unframed)

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Guard Duty - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Guard Duty

 About a year or so before I actually starting painting still lifes, I started to collect things that caught my eye as something I might want to one day include in my paintings. As any still life painter will tell you, we all love our "stuff" and usually have it stashed all over the studio. You never know when you will need just that perfect thing to complete your still life. You'll find us hunting through the thrift stores for that must have tea-cup or bowl or even the odd knickknack. I've noticed that sometimes I use what I buy very quickly; other times, things that looked good when I bought them seem to lose their appeal once back in the studio and are doomed to sit and collect dust until I notice their charm once again. Well, that little statue in this painting was one of the first things I ever bought for my still life collection. I actually have two of them, along with a few other little figures that I got for $2 at an estate auction almost 3 years ago. Then, there it sat on the shelf in the window collecting dust. I tried it in a few other set ups over the years, but it never really worked out so I always removed it and put it back in its place. Well, I'm happy to report after three years, I finally used this little guy in a painting! Hopefully another three years don't pass before I use it again. 

Here's how this painting came to life:

I took this image at the end of my rough block-in. At this stage there's very little paint on my canvas. I mostly just thinned my paint down with a little turpentine and used a paper towel to wipe out lighter areas, like the vase in the upper left and the statue in the lower right.   The reason I like this approach is because it very quickly gives me idea of the overall colors of my painting and a fairly accurate layout of all the objects in it. From here, I can concentrate on each section of the painting and know that I'm not going to run out of room for everything in the painting.

I let the rough block-in dry for a few minutes. Once the turpentine evaporates, it's more or less dry. Then I start painting. Since I'm fairly confident that the placement of all my objects is correct I can bring the objects I'm painting to an almost complete state. I do go back and make some small adjustments as needed while I finish, but most of these areas are done now. I started with the statue since it's my center of interest and I want to judge the rest of the painting against it. It's also one of the more difficult things to paint, so I figured I'd get it our of the way first. This way if I need to wipe if off and start over I don't risk messing up areas I already painted. Notice how many other objects the statue leads to just to get it painted correctly. Most of the foreground is done in front of it and a large part of the background needed to be done to complete the statue.

In this image, I continued working on the background, almost in a counter-clockwise order. The reason I did this is I like to rest my hand on the canvas when I paint and by leaving the foreground till the very end I'm able to do this without smudging the paint. One thing that doesn't show in these pictures is one important step I did so I could paint that blue ribbon in. First, I drew the edges of it with a little bit of paint so I knew where it went. Then I took my palette knife and scraped off any paint that's under the ribbon. I even used a paper towel to wipe off some of the it. Then, I could paint the ribbon cleanly without having to layer on the paint. I don't have anything against thick paint, but I want to use that effect where I want it and not just to cover up the paint under it.

Guard Duty © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 9x12 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Contact me to purchase ($230)

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Apples and Peaches. A step-by-step demo by George De Chiara

Apples and Peaches

In yesterday's post, I talked about how I came up with this arrangement of objects for the still life below. Today's post is all about the painting decisions. Like my other process blog posts, I tried to take pictures at each major step.. Now, let's get on with the demo!

Since one of the things I really wanted to work on is my accuracy in drawing what I see in front of me, I started this painting with a line drawing. Admittedly, the drawing is rough, but this should be enough to get me started down the right road. I'll continue to adjust the shapes as I paint them and get everything to "settle" into place on the canvas. That's one of the wonderful things about painting in oils; I can continue to adjust and refine my painting until I'm happy with it.

I love to get the color work as fast as I can. For me, this is the most exciting part of the painting; however, I don't want to sacrifice accuracy for pretty colors, so I did this very rough color pass to get everything blocked in and establish my color harmony. There isn't much paint on the canvas yet. This is all done with very dry paint scrubbed onto the surface. Some of this paint will show through when the painting is finished. Other parts will get wiped off and started over as I progress with the painting, but for now this gives me a pretty good idea where things are and what color they are.

Once my rough block-in is finished, I can start to refine the painting more and spend time getting things drawn accurately. Notice how the blue bottle has moved slightly to the right and the apples have settled into their place. That peach on the far left will need to move too. I didn't notice in my block in, but I have it way too high in the picture and there isn't enough space between it and the watch, which is leaning on the box. I didn't actually notice this until I had the whole peach painted (after this image was taken). I then had to scrape it off and move it. Not sure why I didn't notice it before I painted it, so I'll chalk that one up to laziness, the painter's enemy!

Just about done now. Notice the new position for the peach on the left? It looks much happier there doesn't it? I know I'm happier with its position, since I can fit the blue ribbon into place now. For me, this ribbon is a very important part of the painting. It can take the eye from the edge of the painting right into the heart of it, so being able to accurately fit it in is important.

The finished painting.

Apples and Peaches

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x10 inches on linen panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Day 26 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Book Worm - by George De Chiara

Book Worm

I didn't realize it at the time, but we have a Christmas ornament that looks almost just like this still life arrangement. My wife is a teacher, and somewhere along the line someone gave it to her. Every year when we decorate the tree, I always seem to notice this one more than any other ornaments. I'm not sure what me think of it today when I was setting this up. I know it wasn't intentional and I didn't even realize it until I added the apple to the still life. Then it hit me, it's the ornament! I was just trying to make an interesting arrangement with these books, and it's funny how the subconscious works sometimes. In an attempt to show you as accurately as possible my painting process, I'm including two images from about the first hour of painting. You'll notice that they are different then the final painting. After I got the apple mostly finished up and started blocking in the books, I realized I had the scale of the whole scene way, way off for the view I was trying to capture. It was then that I came to the realization that I had two choices. I could either go with what I had (and not paint what I intended) or start over. I choose to start over.

Here's how today's painting came to life:

Here's a picture of what I'm looking at while painting today. This is about the composition I'm looking to reproduce. The angle of this photo is a little higher than where I'm painting from, but it's close enough. 

This is my original rough block in. If I was really paying attention when I did this, I would have realized that the drawing is off. If you look at what I roughed in for the top green book its way too short on the right side and way too long on the left. Most of everything below this book is based on the size of it, so everything is wrong. I also made the apple too large, but I thought I'd fix this while working on the painting. Big mistake! If I had corrected it here I might have noticed how off the rest of the painting was before I started it. A lesson for next time!

This is how far I got before I started over. I really struggled with the apple while painting this, perhaps because it's the wrong size. I'm not really sure, but I wiped off what I had twice and re-painted the apple. I finally got it to a point where I thought I might be able to work it out and wanted to get some of the other parts of the painting blocked in. That's when I realized I had completely messed up the initial block in. When I corrected the drawing, I wasn't at all happy with my composition any longer. The books where going to create stripes of colors that ran from side to side. Faced with this boring composition, I spent some time studying the painting to see where things went wrong. Once I had a pretty good idea of where I went wrong, I put a new canvas on my easel and started over.

Okay, now I'm at about the same point as I was in the earlier photo. Things are going much better for me so far. I got to this point faster than my earlier attempt. I'm much happier with my composition, and I think my color choices are better. Now, let's see if I can though the rest of the painting without any major issues...

Here I'm continuing my block in. I'm being careful to not get into too much detail at this stage. I just really want to make sure I get everything placed correctly. Then, I'll go back over everything to add in details and adjust the values and edges of my drawing.

This image was taken at what I consider the end of my block-in stage. Everything is defined at this point. The drawing is just about there, and the color for each object is well established, although it still needs some work. From this point to the final painting, I go over ever inch of the painting adjusting the colors, edges and adding in the details I want to include. I don't bother painting all the titles exactly as they appear  in real life. It's not what I'm interested in. I'd rather paint the impression of the lettering and create an interesting design than reproduce it exactly as it appeared.

The finished painting.

Book Worm

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Valentine Memories - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Valentine Memories

 When I set up this still life, I made sure to give myself plenty of time to get things the way I wanted. It's amazing how much of a difference that makes for me. I feel more relaxed when painting and generally don't run into as many surprises half way through the painting. I also did a fairly detailed under painting for this one before laying in any color. I don't always do this; sometimes I just make some general marks about where things will go. I'm not sure which method I prefer. The truth is I use which ever one I feel is the best choice at the time.  If you would like to see complete step by step pictures of this painting in progress with complete explanations, sign up for my free newsletter at http://georgedechiara.com/email-newsletter. The next issue will come out at the end of the week.

Valentine Memories

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 11 inches x 14 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

5 Till 1 - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

5 Till 1

 I had a lot of fun setting up this still life. For one thing, it came together pretty quickly considering how many objects are in it. I was able to use meaningful objects from around the house, like the little green books in the background. These are my daughter's little books, which are classics I think we all had at one point or another - The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Tale of Benjamin Bunny and The Tale of Tom Kitten. The dried flower arrangement is from my wife's baby shower that were made by her mother and grandmother on that day. Finally, the watch was my father's, which was a gift from my mother to him on his 21st birthday. They gave it to me a few years ago. Amazingly, it still runs to this day! Laying brushstrokes went pretty smoothly, for the most part. I did have to wipe a few parts off and re-paint them, but I was really surprised how much easier (and better) the second attempts came out. Normally I really struggle when I have to wipe off a part of the painting and redo it. It sometimes feels like failure, but I guess its just a part of painting. There's no reason to work in oils if I'm not going to take advantage of one of it's biggest benefits - anything is fixable!

5 Till 1

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8 inches x 16 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Contact me to purchase this painting.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Lifelong Learning - Painting by George De Chiara

Life Long Learning

 This is one of the commission pieces I've been working on for the last few days. The idea is based on of one of my daily paintings, Desktop. This time I was able to expanded upon the idea and truly flesh it out. With this version, you can see more of the lamp and a few more objects placed though out the scene. I was even able to use the lamp as more of a direct light source with this painting, which is the first time I've tried this.  It did presented some problems though so I still had to use another light source that's not in the painting. I felt without the additional light, the scene just looked a little too dark.  After all, the light in the picture only has a 45 watt bulb in it and it's one of those small-sized bulbs on top of that.

Lifelong Learning

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8 inches x 10 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: On Hold.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Desktop - Daily Painting by George De Chiara

Desktop

 I'm not sure why, but it took me forever to set this up today. I originally started off thinking this would be a painting of a teapot and a cup. That set up led me to get a couple of books so I could have the teapot and cup at different heights. Well, that set up felt like it needed something else, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was.  So, before you know it, in went glass bottles, a bowl, a vase, more books, and a desk lamp. Eventually, the subject really started to emerge of an organized little desk, crammed, but neat just waiting for the return of the reader.

Desktop
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5 inches x 7 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Autumn Classics - Daily Painting by George De Chiara

Autumn Classics

 It rained here again into the afternoon, so I painted a still life. Since our little pumpkins are still relatively fresh, I wanted to use them one more time. These varieties of gourds have spots of color that are a real treat to paint. When I set the painting up, it seemed the compostion called for the pumpkins to be at different heights to create interest. So I went to the book shelf and picked out two nicely leatherbound books.  Thanks to  Charles Dickens "Oliver Twist" and Tales of Edgar Alan, coming up with a title was pretty easy.

Daily Painting - Higher Learning

Higher Learning

 Just about the time when I was painting this, my wife walked into the studio and asked "Is that my kindergarten diploma"? "Yep". Actually, it's her book too (James Joyce). I kind of like using books in my still life paintings. The idea came to me a few days ago. I actually used one in yesterday's painting as well. It really gives me the opportunity to introduce colors and patterns into the painting very easily. The lettering on them can be a bit tricky to handle. I don't want the letters to stand out too much. I had to be careful to cheat the values and edges to make them a bit lighter and softer. When it came to name this one, the first thing that came into my mind was "Higher Learning", with a heavy dose of tongue in cheekiness.