Beyond the sketch

I found myself getting more and more involved with this object and its strange shapes.

I particularly enjoyed seeing how a red object needed browns, purples and oranges to convey the form with vitality rather than dulling it with black and white.

I'm heartened that a still life object can open up so many avenues of painting discovery, such as how the colours in the shadows change the perceived distance between different parts of the saw. I think I could have spent another day just tweaking these so they all fell into place nicely.

I realise that some people on my oil painting course question my choice of subject matter (paper bags, bricks, boxes etc...), but I like the idea of really getting into the way paint and colours function rather than worrying if the beauty of the subject matter comes across. We will be painting more "beautiful" objects as well, once we have established the mechanisms that allow us to see the forms we intend to paint.