My Friend Still Life

Still life, how and why, we became friends. Although I had drawn objects from life, I never really thought of them as still-lives. Until the second term of my first year, when I produced this series of oil paintings. These paintings were done after I suffered the bereavement of fellow student and friend – only two days before the start of the Easter semester. During the first lesson, I could not think of anything but what happened a few days before. Everything my tutor said seemed to trigger me.

The subject for this painting workshop was to paint an apple, the painting I did was awful. At the end of the class my tutor suggested that we all produce at least one fruit painting by the next week. So on my way home, I picked up some fruit and painted them that night. I painted the same apples over and over again to prove to myself that I could paint an apple well, because I had failed so miserably in class. The following painting is my favourite that I have done of an apple.

I surprised myself with the amount of enjoyment I got from these paintings, I had never really thought much of still life. But whilst painting I found satisfaction in their subtle positions and giving them personalities. After that term I drifted away from still life until the first national lockdown. When, for a painting workshop, I painted a bat – I will tell you more about that painting another day. After that I started to paint the objects around me. I settled for a while on the inspiration of shell formations – find out more about these paintings here.