Project 8: Still Life with Background

What is Still Life, where does one start ?

After doing research the term still Life is best described as is “An arrangement of a group of objects drawn or painted as a subject in their own right.” These usually contain inanimate subject matter; typically commonplace objects may be either natural (food, flowers, plants, rocks, or shells) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewellery, coins, pipes). The Tate Museum Glossary puts it very succinctly, defining the subject of a still life as "anything that does not move or is dead" which in my opinion gives it a lot of scope. Still Life isn’t something I usually do in fact it didn’t even interest me at all until I did some research on it. Whether I use the traditional subject matter of fruits, food and such or a more up to date subject for example drink cans, snacks, consumer goods or other everyday object which we don’t usually see as art or even pay attention too. I don’t want to go the pop art route; but I would like to use everyday objects as they did but paint them in a traditional style rather than a stylistic simplified image. As I’m not clear on what I’m going to do yet I will paint and draw  any objects that take my fancy, I will also photography groups of objects that I could possibly use.

Choosing a Subject Matter to Paint.

I don’t know if to stay with traditional subject matter, flowers, fruit, food, skulls, shoes and books just to name a few or do something totally different. I could as mention before do everyday objects for example choose a theme like Fast Foods or 21st Century man using all the products found in a man’s bathroom cabinet. It’s such an open brief sometimes I wish the brief would narrow it down to a particular theme. Below are some photographs that I have taken myself around the house looking for a still life image to paint, these are only a few pages taken straight from my research folder.. I’ve no idea what I’m going paint yet I’ll just play it by ear and see what happens.

DON'T FORGET TO CLICK THE IMAGES AGAIN ONCE THEY HAVE LOADED FOR A LARGER IMAGE...