Painting Glass and Silver- Reflections

Sugar Bowl & Spoon
6 x8 Oil Painting by Pat Fiorello
 Amanda Lovett's workshop 7/24/11

This weekend I participated in a fun workshop led by oil painter Amanda Carder Lovett in Atlanta. The topic was on Painting Glass and Silver. I have long admired Amanda's work and thought the focus would be great since I'm doing a lot more still lives lately.

We did a fun exercise the first day which helped us to slow down and really see shapes, edges and values instead of objects. Each student had small several rectangles of a painting to paint. Our assignment was to target the same colors, shapes, edges, values as a same sized reference photo. Once everyone was finished, we put together all the pieces (which were numbered on back) and saw the whole image come together. Even though 9 different artists painted various pieces, not knowing  exactly what they were painting the whole thing came together. ( see below)

A key lesson was not to think of glass or silver ( or any reflective surface) as what we know it to be- but to look for the shapes . That  advice can apply to painting anything, but especially good reminder for  some of these reflective surfaces which can be intimidating to paint if you haven't done them much before.


Here's a photo of Amanda doing a demo of salt & pepper shakers.

Here I am with one of my paintings from today. the photo has got some glare, so below is a photo of the study.

It was a great workshop and Amanda shared not only her painting experience, but also a wealth of practical tips on materials, set up etc.. tried and true tips to help us deal with the tools of painting with ease so we can get on with the important part- the joy of painting!