I usually paint abstract but sometimes I come back to more figurative painting. This is such a time. We moved to Vernon BC and while we are waiting to move into our new home, I found just enough space on the kitchen table in our Airbnb to paint small still-lifes in oil.

It takes a very different kind of concentration from painting the bigger canvasses or doing encaustics. While these do demand a degree of concentration, there is a bigger role for chance. In these figurative paintings there isn’t, not much anyway.

Painting these still-lifes is preparing me for the course I will teach in February at the Art Centre here in Vernon; oil painting for beginners.