Winter Spice, 22 x 24 inches

Winter Spice

This painting was another exploration of creating a still-life composition from a bird’s eye point-of-view, while also exploring a winter theme.

In January, when I began this painting, I was thinking a lot about the different seasonal imagery, and was wondering what would best represent winter. Most of my thoughts went to images of mulled wine, log fires, and cozy times spent in celebration. January, in particular is also a time of renewal after the festive month of December, so it seemed fitting to include items that alluded to all these ideas.

Pomegranates to evoke a sense of prosperity and resurrection (renewal for the secularly minded), and spices for the hot mulled wines and festive baking that pervades the season.

I thoroughly enjoyed painting this piece, I reveled in the attention to detail, spending many days just on the green and white dishcloth, then again spending several days on the pewter plate and pomegranate half.

Sometimes, I just basked in the moment of pushing paint around and getting totally absorbed in the objects before me and how the cloudy winter light filtered onto the still-life setup

{my burnt umber block-in}

{starting on the cloth}

{getting a little further along}

{a little further along}

{detail of the pomegranate half and pewter plate}

As a side note, both Naomi and my kitty, Slim, hastened the completion of this painting by messing around with my still-life stand. Naomi loved playing with the star anise, and Slim managed to topple the whole thing, breaking the green bowl in the process…

...................................................................... Framed Painting {22″ x 24″ (55.9 x 61 cm) – oil on linen} {28″ x 30″ (71.1 x 76.2 cm) with frame} Available for purchase, please email me