Birth of an Oil Painting.....Happy Birth Day.

This is a photo of my finished commission for my client in Missouri....still wet on the easle. 

Yes, I am happy happy happy and I hope the owners will be as well. 

That glass looks like you can pick it up and drink out of it (if it wasn't empty!)  I added the little marks that make the glass on the wine glass and the salt & pepper shakers come to life.  Mostly the less you can add and the more you can imply the better off you are where glass is concerned. 

The lable on the wine bottle is another favorite spot for me.  My client sent me a bottle from one of his favorite local wineries in Missouri.  At the bottom of the lable in tiny letters you can read Hermann MO.  How personal!  My goal with lables is to have them just realistic enough that they are not just generic, anonymous spaces....but not so bogged down in detail that you can read everything word for word.  I want them to evoke the image, but not photocopy it. 

What I try to create is what I told my client in an email...A blend of a very representational piece that is very literal at first glance but then if you look you see the basic "loose-ness" and "expressiveness"  that is the root of impressionistic painting. That is why I love the little imperfect parts...messy edges and the sides of the bottles and the s & p shakers that are not totally matchy-matchy. This is what keeps you looking at a painting long after your eyes have told your brain that this is a painting of some bottles and stuff on a table.

That is why I paint.