Father and Son

Happy Father's Day.
I recently finished a pair of still lifes that are yet another father and son grouping. I am very attracted to the idea of diptychs, or groups of paintings, that have a connection. I like them to play off each other, not just thematically but compositionally. I think it creates an interesting dialog with the viewer added another layer to the story.

After the Game, Father and Son, diptych, each panel 8 x 6, oil, ©copyright Richard Luschek 2013

I also like using objects that date from my childhood or before. I bought both of these vintage bottles at antique stores. They were empty, though that is not always the case when buying these old bottles. They seem to be be more expensive when they contain the original beverage. I just bought an Orange Crush bottle from the 70's that has some pretty nasty looking liquid still in the bottle. When I use that for a still life I will have to open it up and dump the nasty, orang-ish liquid out and replace it with orange drink that does not have brown floaters.
As the burger bottle is a light shape in the middle of a dark bottle I wanted the dark soda to be the mirror of that shape on the Son image. I ended up filling the Pepsi bottle up with Coke, which was all I had and probably is against the law. Hopefully you can't tell.
Painting the clear glass section between the Pepsi logo and the soda was crazy fun. It was an area that would change quite a bit depending on how I was leaning. If I leaned just slightly I could get all manner of abstractions. I would move around to see if there were any improvements, and painted them as they came. 

The lettering on the Burger bottle gave me fits. I repainted it at least 4 times. I also scraped out the C on the Reds hat a few times till I got that just right. 
The Pepsi bottle went a lot faster. This time the glove was a struggle. Below I am posting each painting after the first day. For some reason on the father image, I did not start painting until very late in the day and had to knock out the start in about 90 minutes. The son painting had the benefit of a full day lay-in.  Throughout the process the painting did not change too much- other than to come into focus. I did add the green of the checkered pattern of the table cloth above the glove. I also moved the straw in the Pepsi bottle on an angle sympathetic to other angles in the image. The straw move was actually a great suggestion from one of my students. The new straw location also positioned the straw closer to the front of the bottle and added a nice orange glow from inside the soda, breaking up that dark shape in a pleasing way.

After the Game, Father and Son, First day lay-in, ©copyright Richard Luschek 2013