A Still Life for the Summer Season

The Kitchen Window
Oil on Board
24 x 24 in/61 x 61 cm
Copyright Byrne Smith 2017

I don't typically paint still lifes. It's not that I dislike still lifes, I really do like them, especially many painted by the Impressionists.

I just don't paint them very often, probably because I don't put enough thought into what I would paint. I'm also not very good at planning ahead so that I don't have any (or many) items on hand that would lend themselves to a good still life painting.

That being the case, I pretty much made up this painting in my head about what would make a good still life. I used several reference photos of lemons that I grouped together, but the rest was imagined. That includes the tabletop, the wallpaper, and the kitchen window with the unremarkable view--they don't exist anywhere but my mind.

I like the results, and that's all that really matters to me. I hope you do, too.