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Why do I love still life paintings? --As the poet Browning said, "...let me count the ways."  And though she was referring to human love, I'm sure I can steal the idea since it expresses my feelings so well. For me, still life painting is fascinating. I can choose from an almost infinite number of objects (well, as many as I can get my hands on) and the objects can be arranged in endless variations. In addition, I don't have to pay anyone to model--or talk a relative, friend or pet into posing. Okay, so I don't really talk my pets into posing but you get the idea. Another great aspect of still life painting is that the light never changes if I'm using artificial lighting. And finally, I really love apples, lemons and roses! I have a growing collection of apple paintings because whenever I need to decompress from difficult portrait painting, I do another apple study.

In most of my still life works I prefer simple compositions for two reasons: I am still in the learning stages of composition and my still life set-up area is quite small. In Still Life with Copper and Blue I reached the limit of my space. As for my floral still life White Rose Trio, the only obstacle was the enthusiasm my cats have for flowers. They will decapitate the roses and leave the evidence all around the arrangement, so I have to hide the vase of flowers after each session.