Here is a corner of my house
I committed to a challenge on Australian Art forum, which included doing some things I don’t normally do. I decided to challenge myself with a still life (and I really loathe still lifes), and a landscape. I actually love a good landscape, but can’t do them for nuts. All that depth in the trees kind of freaks me out in some way, but for the sake of my development I need to conquer that.
The biggest part of the challenge, has actually been for me – coming to the realisation that a still life or a landscape doesn’t have to be a bad attempt at the way someone else approaches it. It needs to be completely my own interpretation.
Oh ‘Der’ I hear you say? There has been a long, long, long history of art and artists, and one of the constant themes running throughout has been still life and landscape. In thinking how to approach both, you can’t help but think back about all the good ones you’ve seen and why they were good. And thinking about the bad ones and why they were bad.
That kind of sneaks into your subconscious in some scary way. My brain hasn’t stopped ticking over quite yet to find a departure point from which to spring to my own conclusions.
I’m still struggling in my head about the landscape thing, but have made a start on the still life, and it’s not fruit or flowers, so that makes me happy. This afternoon I’ll hopefully finish it, and I must say it’s been enjoyable, and not too scary. As for the landscape……..
I know what you mean – Many still life and landscapes put me to sleep too:)
It depends what it is – though if I see another bowl of fruit – or a bunch of flowers …….
Look forward to seeing what you do:)
Still lifes put me to sleep now…I can’t say that ALL landscapes do. If they are the dull ones that don’t really have any movement in them……yeah they put me to sleep. There are ALOT of different forms of landscapes though. It depends on the style etc. with me.
And THATs the challenge for me – do one of each and try to make them interesting