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New Painting: The Woobie Offers Up Advice

"The Woobie Offers Up Advice" Oil on Canvas 16" x 12" © 2011 Marilyn Fenn
“The Woobie Offers Up Advice” Oil on Canvas 16″ x 12″ © 2011 Marilyn Fenn

I did this painting a few weeks ago, right after my first white rabbit painting, “The Woobie Contemplates Revenge.”  From a strictly artistic point of view, I was interested in continuing painting white on white and seeing what I could do with that.  I particularly like how fuzzy his fuzzy legs appear in the final work.  There’s more to this painting than just that, though.  I hope you can appreciate it.  We live in interesting times…

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New Painting: The Woobie Contemplates Revenge

"The Woobie Contemplates Revenge" Oil on canvas 10" x 10" © 2011 Marilyn Fenn
“The Woobie Contemplates Revenge” Oil on canvas 10″ x 10″ © 2011 Marilyn Fenn

Painting white things is really fun and challenging.  For this painting, I placed a white rabbit stuffed animal in a white box and lit it from two sides: one a warm light, which casts a cool shadow, and one a cool light, which casts a warm shadow.  So in this white on white painting, the colors come mostly from the shadows cast by the lights.

I enjoyed this challenge so much, that I’m planning more work featuring “The Woobie,” as well as more white on white paintings.  Luckily, the Woobie has a little family, so they could keep me busy for a while.

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A Change in Direction…Three New Still Life Paintings

"Squidward Tentacles" Oil on canvas 6x6 inches © 2011 Marilyn Fenn
“Squidward Tentacles” Oil on canvas 6×6 inches © 2011 Marilyn Fenn

It’s been at least a decade since I painted any representational still life paintings.  I thought I had perhaps gotten past painting still lifes in favor of abstraction, but have recently found myself wanting to work perceptually again, only this time, with any luck (or should I say, with the development of skill), in a looser, more painterly way.

Here are the first three perceptual still life paintings I’ve done this century: Spongebob Squarepants was the first and is still a bit tight, then I painted Patrick Star and Squidward Tentacles.  I think they came out pretty well.  These are, of course, based on small plastic figurines of these characters.

Spongebob Squarepants | Oil on canvas | 6 x 6 inches | © 2011 Marilyn Fenn
Spongebob Squarepants | Oil on canvas | 6 x 6 inches | © 2011 Marilyn Fenn
Patrick Star | Oil on canvas | 6 x 6 inches | © 2011 Marilyn Fenn
Patrick Star | Oil on canvas | 6 x 6 inches | © 2011 Marilyn Fenn

I’m really enjoying working this way again, and hope to do more or less daily paintings if I can.  The intervening decade of pushing myself further toward abstraction has been a very interesting journey so far.  I plan to continue working abstractly as well doing the small still lifes; I don’t know yet if I will be doing both simultaneously or if I will do the still lifes for a while and then pick back up with the abstracts.  Stay tuned.