Inspired by Giorgio Morandi

Painting is a crazy business, at least for me lately. My current painting is inspired by  Giorgio Morandi and what better way to understand someone's work than to make it your own.

His still life paintings are deceptively simple and minimal. There are subtle variations in his values and colors and his compositions are balanced, although tightly packed. When I looked at his work in my library books, I thought okay that's doable. I'm so naive. I based my composition on his work and not on his colors or paint application. The more I worked on my painting the more he impressed me. I like his thick paint, but chose not to apply mine too thickly. To get those subtle grays for my painting I changed my light bulb, tried many color combinations for black (there are a lot!) and decided to tone my canvas. My challenge is to paint all the objects (except the blue glass goblet that reflects everywhere) shades of gray so that they still look like white bottles yet can support my highlights and have depth. I'm 1/3 of the way through the painting and every day is a crazy, mind boggling experience.