Painting a still life?

Question

Are there any tips or tricks on painting a still life? (Working with acrylic)

Answer 1

One of the biggest mistakes that most amateurs make when they try to paint a still-life is to casually set up their props and start to paint. They rarely spend any serious thought about the set-up, the lighting, the mood or concept they intend to convey.

Take some time, re-arrange the pieces, make it playtime for you. Look at an arrangement someone else did and set yours up like it. Play with your light source if you can. Long shadows, short shadows, see what works. Check out the colours, are they compatible?

Once you get it set up live with it a while. Spend 10 minutes just looking at it, or more if necessary. After all this painting is going to be your painting, a testament to you observation and love of the art form.

Look at the flow of the pieces, the highlights, the deepest shadows. Put the brush in your mind and paint the strokes in you head before you ever touch the canvas. You will be amazed at the difference this will make. Most of all, paint what you see. If you lose concentration or get interrupted, regroup your mental focus before proceeding.

Answer 2

Here are some tips.

1. Experiment with different levels: try setting the still life higher than normal table surface level, for instance. Likewise within the still life set up, try to have items of interest high up and low down.

2. Make sure you actually like or are interested in the stuff you are painting. You don't have to use the same old wine bottle and grapes. Paint things you lhave a strong response to.

3. Do a few sketches before you start work.

4. Try and include objects in a range of sizes

5. Experiment with the lighting of the objects: it is sometimes best to screen off the objects so the light only comes from one side.

6. Don't worry if things don't work ou the first few times. It isn't meant be easy.

Happy painting!

Answer 3

Paint it in a different style. Try not to worry about it be realistic, realistic art is boring! Make it "real" art and try painting it in abstact or in graphic style.

There are to many realistic still lifes out there! If you paint yours differently, it will stand out for sure!

Think about composition, it's usually the most important thing. The preplaning and where things are placed. I use tricks all the time that give me the edge. I use the edges of objects to influence the eye to fallow different dirrections or curves the draw the eye back into the painting. Never have a point from a triangle pointing outward. Another trick is to keep the edges of your canvas dark, paint them darker colours or shades, this keeps the eye in the painting.

Good luck, hope you have fun!

Answer 4

Observation, and a good planned drawing.
Start by really scanning and compairing and make sure you have a really solid drawing. the more accurate your drawing is the easier it will be to paint what you see.
Once you have the drawing done scan and compare - seeing really is the key to representational art. Work all over not in small areas and keep compairing one area to another. TONE is huge, really pay attention to how dark / light something is, not just what color it is. If the tones are right the colors can be fudged a bit and it will still look right.
good luck!