I was very excited about doing the still life picture this week. I did not know anything at all about still life as an art form but knew exactly who to ask for a great working definition. I work in a school, so I started asking our art teacher about picking subjects and what made a "still life" a still life. We first discussed traditional Dutch still life that included living and dead items, and that you should have an odd number of items. Im a little squeamish so dead things weren't gonna work for me. So the next option was a group of things. I decided that my grouping would be of Japanese items that my husband brought our family back from a business trip. I found items that had different colors, heights, textures and were made from different things. Starting from left to right, flameless candle, my lacquer and mother of pearl jewelry box called Urushi, my daughters wooden kokeshi doll, my red bunny chopsticks, a wood and paper lantern, the lid of my bento box, and a green woven vase. The background needed to be plain and the entire scene needed to be lit by natural light. (I really did learn a ton!) So here is the final product. All of my items are sitting adjacent to a window with the blinds adjusted so the light was shining just right. Im glad that I have learned so much and it was wonderful to have a living resource to ask questions to that was so knowledgeable on the topic. Thank you Mrs. Barnett your an awesome art teacher... not just to the students : )
