Here’s another painting that I did awhile back. It was purely for fun, and it still has a certain playful quality that makes me smile. At the time, I was experimenting with brighter, non-representative colors, and a slightly less photo-realistic style. The paint is acrylic, and the canvas is hand-stretched (par Moi).
So…why tape dispensers as a subject?

I had one lying on my desk, and I happened to notice that the lamplight was casting a really interesting shadow through the clear plastic. I could actually see the differences where the plastic was more dense, and it gave a swirling pattern to the shadow that it cast. I did a complicated pencil drawing of the shadow (I wish I knew where it was now!) and a few days later I gathered some more tape dispensers to set up as a still-life. I had intended on doing a very detailed painting which showed the characteristics of the plastic that I had been so intrigued by…but when it came down to applying the paint to the canvas, I just wasn’t in the mood to concentrate on such a small details. Perhaps if the canvas had been teeny-tiny (or if I would have been in a more serious mood!) then the painting would have turned out differently. But I had so much fun just washing in the colors, and splashing on the highlights.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll get around to painting a version based on the original concept. I’m still very fascinated by the shadows cast by different materials.