Daily Painting

Daily painting: Onion, cup and bottle

Onion, cup and bottle

17cm x 13cm, oil on card

Painting status: SOLD

Painted Monday, 28 March 2011 · Still life paintings

The conversation

Thoughts on this painting

13 comments

Susan Caba

Stunning. I can feel the papery skin of the onion.I especially love the coloring in that center strip.

Leslee

Of the many things that are so wonderful about your still lives, is that they make one stop and look at ordinary objects in a new way. On this particular one, the coloration of the onion is just fabulous.

shirley fachilla

It takes my breath away. A beautiful painting of just an ordinary onion. As Leslee said above, you make us look at the ordinary and really see. Marvelous.

Ruth M

ooh, that is a harsh light! If I were that onion I would tell you everything I know pretty smartly.

Claudette Nevins

The layering of the onion skin is extraordinary (we can see right through it!) and yes, the point of view is particularly interesting. But I dont see the level on which the onion is sitting. Beautiful blue cup perched somehow above and directing our eye; how is the onion situated? Is it leaning against something? What keeps it in place?

Alain

Finding the shadows very opaque on my screen I have lightened a little. Around the highlight on the left,I discovered a wonderful bottle with exquisite hues and light.And the shadow on the onion more transparent I wonder now which is the real picture.

julian

It's a view from obliquely (?) above. The edge of the shelf can be seen in the bottom right— looks vertiginous but that's just the picture plane, it's sitting on a flat horizontal surface.

julian

I've re-photographed it this morning—it was nearly midnight when I photographed it last night. It's possibly a little less dramatic but may help explain the angles and set-up.

Barbara M

I think that this is deceptively difficult to execute in such a small space. Thanks Alain for your comment. It made me 'see'.

Painter’s notes

The clocks changing to summertime is very confusing for us daily painters, somehow I end up painting in the dark even though we have an extra hour of daylight.

Julian Merrow-Smith ·