The idea for adding a sticky-note to my images came about, innocently enough, because I was carving pumpkins with the grandkids. I was sketching faces on sticky notes for the children to see before we made any cuts. The faces stuck to the pumpkin rinds were so funny that it didn’t take me long to envision this as a story-telling device.
Adding a sticky-note to a painting helps to add emotion to my inanimate subjects and humor to the painting. The sticky note face stuck to the apple with blue painter’s tape was painted in the trompe l'oeil style, visual illusion where a painted subject looks real. I regularly have people to the side of a painting to determine if there is really paper and tape affixed to the canvas. (There isn’t.)
The rest of Apple Anguish was painted in a traditional still life style, using methods that would have been at home with the Dutch Masters over 400 years ago. I love seeing the mix of age-old techniques with modern subjects and sensibilities.