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A Pear-A-Tif: Step 2 »

A Pear-A-Tif: Step 1

A Pear-A-Tif

Welcome back to the Artist’s Studio! During this project we’re going to walk-through my most recent oil painting, A Pear-A-Tif, and talk a lot about this particular style of painting: trompe l’oeil, which literally means “deceive the eye.”

My subject is a luscious Anjou pear (an orangish-brown variety, as opposed to the usual green you find in the supermarket) covered in a river of thick chocolate syrup. This piece is done on board, and like all trompe l’oeil works that board must first be sanded and smoothed, then painted with a preliminary coat of gesso, which will help the paint stick to the board. Another possible medium for trompe l’oeil paintings is acrylic panel. It still has to be sanded and gesso-ed, and gives an even more smooth, slick finish.

I’ve also started blocking in the background, which is the one part of the painting that doesn’t require any reference material. The colors compliment the pear, and when the marble table is brought to life, it will too.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 31st, 2006 at 4:25 pm and is filed under A Pear-A-Tif. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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About Bryan Larsen ~

Bryan Larsen

"I was born on February 12, 1975, and have been drawing as long as I can remember. By the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to be an artist, although at the time I didn't have a clear idea of how exactly I would use my talents to make a living.

"As I continued studying art, I began to suspect that fine visual art was dead. No one seemed interested in teaching students how to draw well, or paint well. More often than not, my own skills exceeded those of my instructors.

"The only field left that seemed to require good drawing, painting, and compositional skills was illustration, and therefore I began studying illustration at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. I became even more convinced that I had made the right decision in staying away from fine art as I endured course after course of required "drawing" and "painting" classes in which instructors required me to draw with "less focus", or use ridiculous materials such as shellac, glue, sand, salt, etc.

"My second year at Utah State, I met Damon Denys. In discussing Art with him I realized that there were other people who believed that technique and subject matter were indispensable components of any work of art. I then decided that I would work to develop my own painting skills with the purpose of creating artwork that I considered worthy of being called Fine Art.

"Since that time, I have studied on my own: Drawing from live models to learn the human form, studying proper painting techniques from any source I could find ample reason to trust, and developing a philosophy of Art based on reason, and life on earth.

"My goal is to portray the heroic and romantic in human nature and human achievement in a realistic style and a modern setting. I place particular emphasis on composition, technique, realistic detail, proper craftsmanship and consistency of style."