How I Develop a Painting

I spent the evening thinking about what I'd like to paint.  

The idea came to me in object and color combinations. I was inspired by paintings I've seen in the past in magazines, in museums and those of my favorite contemporary painters. I wanted the challenge of painting several objects on a larger

 20 x 16 horizontal canvas and not my usual 10 x 8.

It took a while, I had to buy the produce and gesso a canvas. 

I put things in and took them out and did a lot of rearranging. 

It actually took a lot of time.

 This was my original layout. It ended up with too many items.

 It was too busy and awkward.

 I liked this layout with the canvas vertical, but in the end, I didn't like the knife in for foreground. It was too heavy and it reminded me of a slasher movie. Although I liked the way it led the viewer into the painting.

I took the knife out. I squared up the image in photoshop to fit a 12 x 12 canvas and the perspective worked. I liked the foreshortening of the leeks. I could see this still life as a finished painting.

I drew it in and started with the hardest object to paint and those were the leeks. I paint from life with smaller paintings and also use a photo reference for larger work. 

The next session I might have to touch up what I've already painted and then go from one object to the next in the painting process.