This image combines some elements of the reference photo with drawn shapes that mask and intersect with each other. The still life consists of eggs, tin cans with pop top lids, and an architectural model cut from illustration board.
My process started by constructing outlines of the forms that overlap and intersect with each other. I wanted ambiguity in some shapes, as if they were slicing into adjacent forms, such as the circular shape in the left third vertical midpoint, and the elliptical shape of the pop top in the right third of the foreground, which modifies the value of the hue in the tin cans behind it, revealing it as a low intensity red.
Gradients in pure grey on some of the cans in the left and on the eggs add some three dimensional solidity to those forms. Other more planar forms such as the trapezoidal elements in the architectural model use flat applications of grey, but these deliberately distort the values in the still life setup to make the form appear to project and recede at the same time, giving it a dynamic instability.
The eggs suggest reflected light from their containers, and seem to glow with an inner light as well. To me they represent the potential of biological life to reproduce once liberated from a protective shell. They also exhibit primal ellipsoids characteristic of Plato's Ideal Forms, from which our perceived reality springs.
The colors remind me of Rembrandt's last self portrait, with its rich reddish browns and pale ochres. The green of the background and foreground remind me of the awakening ground during the first appearance of spring, in contrast to Rembrandt's depiction of his worn out human incarnation near the end of its life.
The intense red-orange on the Pearl's Olives can label in the upper third and horizontal center peeks out from behind the circular can lid and the architectural model. The ghostly hand shape on the label acts as a secondary focal point, due to its human element. It occupies the apex of a triangle, with the dark shapes in the foreground forming the base.
The eggs and pop tops in the lower third of the picture circulate in an elliptical path that captures the eye, almost as if in orbit around the Earth. The circular inner annulus on the intersecting disk allows the eye to escape that orbit and travel on a tangent to other parts of the image, via the pull of the intense red-orange with recognizable letters in negative space. The rings in this annulus echo the face-on rings circling the planet Saturn, and the swirling colors in the inner disk could be the yellow-gold clouds the gas giant's atmosphere.
Areas of grey contrast with the colored haze and suggest a screen on which the image has been projected, as shadows on the wall in Plato's Cave, especially with the cans on the upper left third of the picture. By contrast, the reddish-brown forms of the interior and exterior surfaces of the cans in the foreground punch through the flat plane of the picture and into the fiery center of the Earth, deeper in the cave, as if we were explorers in Jules Vern's story.
The elliptical shapes in the upright can in the middle background pierce the cylindrical form and reveal the void behind, which could be the amorphous backdrop of a rainy day sky. Indistinct blobs of color float in those voids, providing the impression of a telescope eyepiece that tunnels through the clouds and into the Galaxy, showing the luminescent gas clouds that eventually form stars and planets.
My process started by constructing outlines of the forms that overlap and intersect with each other. I wanted ambiguity in some shapes, as if they were slicing into adjacent forms, such as the circular shape in the left third vertical midpoint, and the elliptical shape of the pop top in the right third of the foreground, which modifies the value of the hue in the tin cans behind it, revealing it as a low intensity red.
Gradients in pure grey on some of the cans in the left and on the eggs add some three dimensional solidity to those forms. Other more planar forms such as the trapezoidal elements in the architectural model use flat applications of grey, but these deliberately distort the values in the still life setup to make the form appear to project and recede at the same time, giving it a dynamic instability.
The eggs suggest reflected light from their containers, and seem to glow with an inner light as well. To me they represent the potential of biological life to reproduce once liberated from a protective shell. They also exhibit primal ellipsoids characteristic of Plato's Ideal Forms, from which our perceived reality springs.
The colors remind me of Rembrandt's last self portrait, with its rich reddish browns and pale ochres. The green of the background and foreground remind me of the awakening ground during the first appearance of spring, in contrast to Rembrandt's depiction of his worn out human incarnation near the end of its life.
The intense red-orange on the Pearl's Olives can label in the upper third and horizontal center peeks out from behind the circular can lid and the architectural model. The ghostly hand shape on the label acts as a secondary focal point, due to its human element. It occupies the apex of a triangle, with the dark shapes in the foreground forming the base.
The eggs and pop tops in the lower third of the picture circulate in an elliptical path that captures the eye, almost as if in orbit around the Earth. The circular inner annulus on the intersecting disk allows the eye to escape that orbit and travel on a tangent to other parts of the image, via the pull of the intense red-orange with recognizable letters in negative space. The rings in this annulus echo the face-on rings circling the planet Saturn, and the swirling colors in the inner disk could be the yellow-gold clouds the gas giant's atmosphere.
Areas of grey contrast with the colored haze and suggest a screen on which the image has been projected, as shadows on the wall in Plato's Cave, especially with the cans on the upper left third of the picture. By contrast, the reddish-brown forms of the interior and exterior surfaces of the cans in the foreground punch through the flat plane of the picture and into the fiery center of the Earth, deeper in the cave, as if we were explorers in Jules Vern's story.
The elliptical shapes in the upright can in the middle background pierce the cylindrical form and reveal the void behind, which could be the amorphous backdrop of a rainy day sky. Indistinct blobs of color float in those voids, providing the impression of a telescope eyepiece that tunnels through the clouds and into the Galaxy, showing the luminescent gas clouds that eventually form stars and planets.