Christmas Still Life

2012 Christmas Still Life Set Up

 The Christmas decorations are up and everything is sparkling.   For this year's Christmas still life painting, I chose a few festive objects, a Santa Claus statue, some holly, a roll of curling ribbon and a wine bottle gift tube.    I covered my still life shelf with gold satin fabric. The wine bottle tube had some height to it so I elected to turn the canvas portrait style.    The Santa was in the middle with holly and berries at his feet.

The first photo shows the set up and an early version of the painting. I made the mistake of using some Ivory Black of a cheap brand to fill in the background. It was like trying to spread black lard across the surface. I ended up wiping it off canvas, scraping it off my palette and throwing the tube away. I dug out my Gamblin Ivory Black and used that mixed with some Prussian Blue for the background.    I vow to not use that cheap paint again.

Christmas Still Life before Ribbon

I liked the wine tube because the top had a mottled gold pattern that I painted by layering with my palette knife.  I took some liberties with the color and pumped it up in a few places.   Here was the painting after completing the objects, but prior to adding the shiny red ribbon.   At this point I was thinking that this painting was fun and relaxing after several plein air, and live model paintings in a row. It's not that those aren't fun too; it's just that they are much more demanding mentally and physically.

Then easy fun became challenging fun.  The painting was fairly dry and ready for adding the ribbon.
This is a photo of the painting prior to taking the last bold step which was to paint a long twisting strand of red curling ribbon coming off the roll and winding all around the painting.

Christmas Still Life w Curling Ribbon

I unfurled several feet of it and wove the curls in and out of the objects on the shelf so that it travelled all over.    (I did something similar on another painting "Gotta Get Gardening," in which I used gardening jute the same way).   What I wanted the ribbon to do was unify the objects by connecting them and potentially supplying an overt guide to the viewer when scanning the painting. 

For the record, the jute was much easier since it had a uniform thickness and no shine.   The ribbon had the complexity of a shiny side and opaque side as well as the changes in the ribbon from visible to invisible, varying widths and twirls.

Here is the painting with the ribbon and its shadows.   The question is, should I have left the ribbon off?   Maybe.   Well too late now.

Merry Christmas!