Stinky Still Life Finished

Chocolote Milk, 22"x14", oil on linen, 2009

I have been working on a still life response to the Coffee and Cigar painting I did a few months ago. It is the 'right side' of a father and son diptych set of paintings. I will have the same frame on each of them, and think they work well as pair.

I try to take a lot of process shots of my paintings, and I kept up with this one fairly well. I will try to post a series of shots throughout the execution of the painting describing the process a bit.

Here they are side by side.


It is an interesting mix of time periods, with a new carton of milk, and old retro can of Nestle, a new Snickers bar, and an old comic book of mine from the 70's. The Toys were also mine from childhood. Someone had questioned the mixed of products from different eras. After I got finished giving them a serious beating, I explained that it is all about design and the anachronisms are hopefully what the painting is about. I tried some other retro stuff, but I decided that then new plastic carton looked the best. I mean, if Rembrandt was allowed to put contemporary armor on soldiers in religious paintings of Christ rather than Roman garb, I can have a contemporary Snickers bar (I have heard that the armor Rembrandt used was not exactly contemporary, but from the previous generation. I suppose the current armor was in use, and he got the armor for the painting from the local Thrift store).

Now, why was it stinky? Obviously, because there is milk in the painting. The painting did take a while to complete- it has been up since the middle of January, so I went through a few cartons of milk to finish it. I used a carton of skim milk and a carton of chocolate milk from IGA. The chocolate was not mixed from the can, as it was an old empty can I found in the building of my old studio in Northside- I am guessing it's from the 60's. It was a bit rusty, and I had to use another similarly shaped can to fake the shine of chrome in the last few sessions. I thought I would be able to buy one at the store, but everything is in plastic these days.

Just for your interest, here is a photo of the chocolate milk on the last day (this is the 4th glass I had poured for the painting, the other 3 got similarly funky). This is a lesson in making sure that this sort of work is done in the cooler months of the year. Not a good painting to try in the summer. Though, I suppose the milk could go in the fridge each night if I had too.

This got me thinking, what would chocolate cheese taste like?


As will most pictures on this blog, you can click on it to see it enlarged.