Still Life Painting Design Ideas
Still life painting in watercolor – especially interiors – is loaded with design opportunities to embellish. You can change the color palette of the room completely. Go ahead and add imagination to edit the scene. Remove objects, or add others that weren’t really there. It’s like magic and you are the wizard!
With a little imagination, you can assemble parts of separate reference photos to create a scene much like a set-designer would on a stage. Look at other paintings you love by your favorite artists. Can you find a local equivalent in your design idea that would pay homage to their painting without copying anything directly? Pattern on pattern? Geometry of a room? Do you play with imaginary design elements when planning a still life or interior painting?
Assembling Different Photos to Create Imaginary Scenes
Still life in watercolor is one of my favorite genres to look for and be inspired by on social media. When assembling a still life in my studio, I like to increase interest in the arrangement by incorporating imagined backgrounds.
My studio is a small spare bedroom that also houses my etching press, so there isn’t enough floor space to stage a compelling background, other than the studio itself.
Fortunately for us artists, it doesn’t take a lot of equipment to print photo-copies of other rooms, windows, walls and hallways to incorporate as a faux background to compliment a focal point. have you walked through your house, or the vintage photos of your family’s rooms, to find an interesting background idea?
Playing with Contrast and Color
If cutting and taping composite photos to create a whole new environment to paint seems like a lot of work, you can narrow your alterations for painting design ideas. Instead of painting your subject or reference photo as it appears, change the colors. If the room was primarily red and violet, use a gold wheat and gray slate colored palette instead.
Or if the objects around your subject were so lost in shadow, they disappeared in the composition, bring them into a focus a little bit, and brighten their shadowy hues – just a tad – to give empty corners some interest. If there’s nothing interesting outside a window in your reference photo, add something fun, like in this watercolor. Know what I mean?
A Watercolor’s Journey
My friend LG sent me a photo of her newly build bedroom drenched in squinty winter light about a decade ago. Her cats’ unanimous feline approval-sprawl confirmed that this room was an excellent addition to their home. I asked to use the photo as a reference, with a few little changes here and there. (You ask permission to paint from other folks’ photos, right?) Lucky for me, she said yes. (Thanks, LG. 💜)
Later, when I exhibited that interior watercolor (above), two couples attending the show together split the purchase of the painting as a gift for another couple who just lost their cat. We’ve all grieved for animals before, and the heartbreak is profound.
The fact that his humans are stuck in the house with him, during a pandemic,
all day long, every day, is a gift. From his perspective, that’s a lot of opportunities for love. Smart kitty.
Unanticipated Artist Benefits
A watercolor that bridged the miles to my far away friend (and her cats), and was so fun to paint, has now traveled with a new purpose as a gestural salve for grief between friends. That experience, from start to finish, was an artist’s torte cake of goodness.
What sort of lovely exchanges have you had recently because of your artwork? And how have you altered your source material to make watercolor paintings that felt more akin to your personal vision? Tell us a story in the comments.
Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you in the next post –
Belinda
Share this post with an artist friend….
P.S. Under normal, non-pandemic circumstances, I’d be loading my car today, to drive a road case full of watercolors and printmaking to a series of art events. All my Spring art festivals are cancelled, so this season’s painting, printmaking and framing was for naught. Instead, I’m hosting a Virtual Art Festival sale in my Etsy Shop. For a limited time, everything will be 20% off with Free Shipping. I’ll relay the date and time of the sale in the next post.
P.P.S. Watercolor Painter extraordinaire Shari Blaukopf posted a free video demonstration of her five favorite brushes. It’s an excellent overview of how each of them can be used for specific areas in your watercolor paintings. Check it out here.
The paint well insert comes out for re-loading or cleaning, and you can rotate the configuration, so the thumb-rest on the corner works for right or left handed. How cool is that? Get more details and artist’s photos here.
Art Quote
The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.
Randy Pausch
Seven Questions to Help You Roll Past Creative Block
Stagnant creativity feels like a heavy fog pill slipped into your coffee when you weren’t looking. How do you get past Creative Block?
You want to make things. But there’s an invisible sludge haze blocking creative idea generation, inspiration and motivation to get something started. <---Started is the key word.
If you feel like your creativity is blocked, and inspiration eludes you, try this exercise. Sometimes, you just need a hand to hold on the Start part of making art....
Tools
Instructions
- Secure 30 minutes, a pen, a note pad, and some quiet time. Sit in a favorite chair, in a sunny spot in a quiet corner. If home is too chaotic, go to a coffee shop and sit in a sunshiny spot. In either case, if it helps, use earbuds or headphones, and listen to instrumental (no words) music. Fill in the blanks below…
- If I were the King/Queen of the world, and I could sweep a magic wand to clear time and space to create a beautiful piece of art, I’d work in (fill in your medium: oil, acrylic, pastel, watercolor, pen and ink, colored pencil, graphite)._____________________________.
- I could make something abstract, or impressionistic, or representational – and since I have a magic skill wand, I think I’ll choose _________________________________.
- Since I’m in charge, when I think about size and format, I’d like to make something (small, medium large, huge)__________________________, and in a (horizontal, vertical, square)___________________________ format.
- I’ve got a hankering to work on (paper, yupo, aquabord, canvas, panel, gesso’d paper)_____________________________________.
- I’m imagining colors that appeal to me right now, in this season of my life, so I’ll focus on a prominence of these three colors, with supporting hues around them: ______________________________________________________.
- I know I can choose any subject that appeals to me, like figurative, portrait, still life, landscape, city scene, interiors, sky/cloudscapes, animals, ocean/shorelines and genre scenes. So, right this second, I feel like painting a __________________________________, with elements of __________________ and ____________________ included.
- Now, flip open to a fresh page on your notepad, and stomp on that creative block by doodling some layouts, angles, and compositions (no details, see below) that might fill the format of your paper or canvas.
Notes
Feel free to print this, and alter the questions or add new ones that fit your style. Think about times when your art-making was more active, and jot down elements from that time (positive, encouraging) that you can visualize and pre-plan to help you get past the hump of stuckness.
You aren't alone in this. Every artist in history has felt creative block at one time or another, so we are all rooting for you. Set some time aside, and slay it. You've got this.
Belinda! You are an indefatigable force of nature! I think you must have a considerable staff or maybe Santa’s elves moonlighting during theoff season! You are truly an inspiration to us all and I’m confident that I’m speaking for all of us! Stay safe; God bless!
Jerry
Ger, You are one very kind human! And if you’ve seen any off-season elves looking for an art studio gig, please send them my way! Thanks very much for your encouragement and compliments. Your prodigious output of beautiful art keeps me motivated every week! High five and a jolly rousing of Carry On, my friend! XO
Your painting is so peaceful and beautiful Belinda and thank you for all the other informations.:)
Hello Steina, I’m glad you’re finding useful things here, and I hope your creative urges are matched with your art supplies for tender output. Happy painting to you.
Thanks as always for an amazing post. Beautiful paintings and great ideas. It is a hard time for artists.
We need people like you to inspire us.
XOXOXOXOXOXO Barbara
You inspire as well, my friend. Thank you for that. You’re always encouraging, inventive and generous. Let’s fill the well together. Art is always better when we make it together. XOXOXO
Thanks for sharing your ideas. I’ve enjoyed watching your tutorials too. I have only recently picked up a paintbrush after a long break. Our family was living in Glasgow, Scotland for a year and we have now moved back to Australia. Before we left I gave each of our neighbors a painting of their home/front entrance. I wished I had gotten some tips from you beforehand but I was still pleased with the results and our neighbors were thrilled. I am hoping to get some more done whilst in isolation. Its pretty tricky with 2 young boys. Thanks again.
Hi Caroline, welcome back to your art practice. I am so familiar with long absence from creativity. See this: https://www.belindadelpesco.com/getting-back-to-art.html/ I love that your neighbors got a house portrait from you.Art is tricky as it is, let alone with two small kids. I wish you determination and conviction to prioritize it at least once a week during the quiet hours. I’ll be rooting for you from afar.
Thanks for sharing this great post. It’s a great way to develop a piece. I assign a similar approach to my students for their observational drawing sketchbooks. They have to sketch one thing, then add something else to the sketch from a different place, then go to another location to add something else…. It’s amazing what they come up with, and it helps to give observational drawing a creative boost.
Hi Kathleen, I *LOVE* that assignment! I think I should start deploying it from real life objects around my house. Observational drawing was one of my favorite and most surprising exercises in college. I learned so much. Thanks for sharing your details, and reminding me to take it farther than photos.