Still Life With Some Life

 Every once and awhile I feel the need to paint some still life. It's good practice for form and shading and it's always nice to switch things up a bit. Lately my Dad and I have discussed at length how difficult flowers are to paint. They look easy but when you are going cross eyed trying to find the specific petal you are working on you suddenly realize there is a 'real' art to painting flowers. It's been a little while since I fought with some flowers so I dove in with these two studies for some extra practice.

In both cases when the painting was finished it felt empty to me. Just some flowers. I wanted more life in the images so I added some life! Butterflies have been fluttering through some of my art lately and the little mouse in the second painting is the vole from my cabin. When I had added life to the still life studies they finally felt fully complete. 
Both of these paintings are for sale in my Etsy shop.