Colour, A Raw Material

Jelly Beans

14" x 10"

2011

"Colour is a basic human need…like fire and water, a raw material, indispensable to life."        

~ Fernand Léger, {painter, 1881-1955}

It's interesting to move from a palette of pale colours as I used in my Venetian painting, to one of bright yellow, orange, green, pink. In this painting I used almost all the primaries and secondary colours - orange was mixed with cadmium red light and cadmium yellow light. The green is a mix of permanent green and cadmium yellow light. The dark purple was achieved by mixing dioxane purple and cobalt blue. The black is a mix of lamp black and a little dioxane purple.  The pink is cadmium red medium and white. So there are a lot of straight forward strong colours which are then highlighted with white to indicate gloss.  The contrast of the dark tones is what gives the contents of the jar their form. There isn't much toning down within the shading of the jelly beans.

The challenge of depicting the shiny surface of the candy through the glass is what draws me to this series of paintings.  We are familiar with the shape of the candy, we know what it feels like in our mouths, as we view the image, and perhaps there is a moment when the flavor is remembered.

Joseph Decker is a relatively little known artist who painted candy as well as fruit still lifes.  The way he abstracts some of the candy shapes intrigues me.

Several years ago I was in New York and dropped into the Bernarducci Meisel Gallery and saw Roberto Bernardi's candy paintings.  He's a hyper-realist (I would consider myself more of a perceptual realist - which is how Jack Chambers described his art) and the painting was extremely smooth - you couldn't see any brush strokes at all and there is no built up areas of paint.  The work had great sparkle and clarity and was an inspiration for me to start my own series.

The painting of sweets comes from the Baroque tradition and was popular among both Spanish and Dutch artists. I'm working in the modern day continuation of the subject which has many different streams and modes.