Showing posts with label #stilllifepainting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #stilllifepainting. Show all posts

Monday, June 29, 2020

When real people popped up in my still lifes


Lucy in Lockdown
egg tempera on panel 30 x 20 cm



I'm astounded to see that it has been months since I posted my last blog! I have been putting things up on instagram.  You can look there if you'd like and have time instagram   but although in many ways a precious period, lockdown did change my routine, it feels good to be back. 

Mostly what I've been doing is making Portraits For NHS Heroes while backstopping our children and their friends, looking after Lyra (our dog) and tending to our bounteous garden in capricious weather. I have also been sketching in various sketchbooks not far from the house and returning to my still life arrangements because there is so much to say about objects and colour now. I have a mail chimp newsletter that I send out occasionally. You can see that and subscribe here: Rebeccaguyverart newsletter  and that would take you up to a few months ago when I began exploring the idea of putting real people's likenesses in still lifes. 

This one, Lucy in Lockdown, was a commission.  Lucy had seen my newsletter and was interested in buying one of the pieces she'd seen.  We had a socially distanced studio visit and I talked her into letting me try to make something that would reflect lockdown for her and have some of the elements she liked in some of my other work in it. She sent me some photos and I set up a scenario. 

I looked online for some figurines that might inspire me in making Lucy and used one I had to understand the light. One thing lock down has helped with is being freed to use photos in whatever way helps me, without guilt.