From Concept to Canvas
Some paintings are the result of an impulse. This one incubated over many years, but only came together as a concept in response to a commission. Join me on the journey, from reference photos, through to the finished painting.
Fancy doing your own interpretation? You are welcome to use my reference photos (below).
Lets begin at the end…
I LOVED every minute of painting this oil still life, a vibrant contemporary take on the traditional ‘foodstuff on a shelf’ painting. It is called ‘Resignation’, a shameless projection of human emotion onto the unfortunate squid.
Here is the finished commission, in situ in the client’s home:
“Just wanted to tell you how wonderful the picture is. Makes me smile each time I see it. It’s fabulous”
The germ of an idea
For me the idea started in 2015 with my interest in prawns and cockroaches. I had a solo exhibition in Dubai (download catalogue here) much of which explored how our view of the world is distorted by conditioning. I love their textures, and was conflicted about my own conditioning to happily eat one and yet be repulsed by the other. I adore John Singer Sargent’s painting of Octopi on the deck of a boat (done when he was in his teens).
My friend Becca saw my Octopus painting set against a similar coloured background in the (sadly closed) restaurant Green’s Dining Room. As a patron of my work since our Dubai days, she wanted a statement piece for her kitchen, developed from that concept. Knowing her to be a lover of fresh ingredients, I hoped to incorporate the effect of light glowing through cut lemons. I set up a citrus still life, and painted that as practice.
Knowing from pungent experience that painting seafood from life over several days is err… challenging, I constructed a homemade shadow box. This allows you to take reference photos under very controlled lighting, with a black background.
I used a cement paving slab balanced on jam jars to create a ‘floating’ shelf. To improve the colour of the slab, I’d given it a coat of Burnt Umber acrylic paint. Unbeknownst to me, some local wildlife had climbed aboard the underside while it was drying in the garden!
I bought a squid from the local fishmonger, put dilute apple juice into a wine glass (why waste the good stuff?), chopped up a load of lemons, and started shooting.
Seconds later, the snails emerged, drawn to the delicious parsley aroma. I took countless photos, and shared them with Becca. To my delight she also loved the snails, so we agreed to incorporate them. I have since learned that squid have a well developed central nervous system, and don’t buy them any more. Luckily, I took a lifetime’s worth of photos of this one. Here are a few, I will share a link to the full collection below…
As Becca enjoyed how the painting in the restaurant ‘merged’ into the wall colour, she supplied me with a colour swatch to match the intended background. We looked at the photos, I did a few sketches, and we batted composition ideas around until we were happy. For each element we considered which of the photos had the best reference. I combined them roughly in photoshop, then adjusted during the painting process. In the end the canvas went against a different wall colour, in a related complimentary shade.
See my instagram for painting videos, from first marks through timelapses and on to final glazing - here’s the first one, featuring a vintage tube of 79p oil paint from my Grannie’s stash!
Especially for you
Those reference photos came out so well, if you can use any of them for your own work, please feel free to download them. I’ve already started a 2nd version, and am planning some snail close-ups too. Click the image below to browse over 100, including a couple of snail videos. Happy painting, don’t forget to tag me so I can see and share your work! And if you enjoyed this blog, please do share it and leave a comment x
