Morandi Haunts Me

Bottles 24" x 18"

The last week and half's themes have oddly coincided in two, soon to be three of my classes. Last week in my drawing class we looked up Giorgio Morandi as our weekly artist. Known for his numerous paintings of bottles, jars, and boxes, he painted until he was he died at age 74. He never married and lived with his four sisters, who I guess never married either. He would go to his studio and day after day set up still lifes of bottles, which he had painted to remove their transparency, vases and cubes. The drawing above is in vine charcoal and kneaded eraser on a large sheet of paper. I started with the two bottles on the left since I didn't want to risk smudging my work with my dominant hand. Glass is difficult for almost everyone. With it's highlights not only reflecting but bouncing inside of it, it can be difficult to get just right. It also have refracting properties which distort the images behind it, such as the table top line on the cluster of two bottles had one bottle with a higher table line and the other's was lost in the glass. This study is growing on me and I feel satisfied with how the top of the bottles look.

Primary Objects 14" x 11"

Last Thursday in my oils workshop, I was surprised to find a Morandi step up. (and honestly a bit disappointed, I didn't really like his work. I like still lifes of objects ect, but I couldn't believe Morandi didn't go bonkers doing the same thing for decades) But I mixed it up a bit and added brighter colors than Morandi, who stuck to muted hues of grey and brown, and used a palette knife to paint instead of a brush for the objects and the foreground. This forced me to use 3x the amount of paint and focus on the main shapes since knifes as big as the one I was using are hardly accurate. The background wall was done with a Bristol brush. Click on it for a zoom in.

Values Study 18" x 24"

Finally, he is a value study from two weeks ago that I half forgot about. I was drawn to the long shadows and how the light peaked over the sphere onto the top of the Styrofoam cups.