Still Life???

My painting "Shore Houses," which I earlier posted to this blog, just won the award for "Best Still Life" at the Maryland Pastel Society's Shades of Pastel Show! The juror, Richard McKinley, explained that he considers still life to be about planes and reflected light, while landscape is about light on natural objects, and thus he considers this to be a still life!

I was, of course, honored to get the award, but also found it very ironic, given my "problems" with creating still life paintings!!!

When giving the award, Richard said this could be considered a portrait, a landscape, or a still life. Whatever you call it, I DO love the interplay of defined planes with the natural forms of trees and shrubs and that is what I am concentrating on now. I'm also focusing, to some extent, on houses that are related in some way to water. I have been enjoying painting houses from our trip to Maine and will share some soon, I promise!