Shadows and reflections

One of the exciting things about starting something new – like painting still-life – is to discover what abstract qualities you like painting. I adore shadows and reflections (and pattern and texture).

In this painting, there are the reflections of light on the bottle and a coloured shadow cast by the bottle. There is also a faint cast shadow on the left hand side. Then the colour varies from one side of the horizon to the other. Sometimes I have to invent shadows and reflections. In my tulip painting (which you can’t see as it is for a ‘secret auction’) I made the vase much bigger and a different shape to the one I had. Then I looked at different vases and even a drinking glass to work out / guess the shadows and reflections.

My next large vase is an African vase and I wanted to do a cast shadow but the vase is too big to set up like this. So I used my cut out drawing and suspended it with cotton thread. Obviously it is flat so you can’t see the light on the contours of the vase, and what you can see is an illusion. But you can see how the shape of the shadow goes from the edge of the base diagonally and then is larger and higher than the vase. And it leaves a lovely negative shape of light just below the bulge.

I have some exciting ideas for this vase and I hope I can pull these off!