soul and purpose

"Through my paintings I hope to communicate a personal enthusiasm and respect for the natural world, thus encourage in others an active stewardship of same." -- JEANNE ILLENYE

painting study little gems oil still life paintings rich deep color black cherries STUDY OF BLACK CHERRIES (SOLD)


Study of Black Cherries
Oil on Panel 4 x 4 inches
SOLD
You may think this is a painting about cherries...but in reality, it is a study of subtle shading and highlights. It began innocently enough as a simple life study of a trio of black cherries on a solid white background, almost like a botanical. I was striving for a more contemporized presentation yet found that I had the urge to ground the subjects such as on a table, retreating back to my familiar classical still lifes. However, wanting to retain the painting’s original freshness, I began to ever so lightly hint at a table line, then some faint shadows. After recognizing that the shadows would look more interesting if the fruit were placed right up against a vertical surface, I achieved not only the desired dimension, but also some rather interesting silhouettes. Studying further, I dove inside those lovely shadowy shapes and began developing what you see here, a delicate study of shadows and highlights. It was quite a lot of fun to work this painting and for a small 4x4 inch piece, it’s really rather loaded when you delve into it.

3 comments:

naquaiya said...

I'm delving and it's fun. I particularly like the wall shadows but the colors on the cherries are delicious too.

Bee Skelton said...

Those slicks of blue on the fruit are just magic!

JEANNE ILLENYE said...

Thank you so much for your observations and particular attention to the details! I had vowed to incorporate a little more blue in my work this year, and was able to slip it in here!


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I was published in Visual Language Magazine

BLESSED

Blessed are those who see beautiful things in humble places where others see nothing.
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