A favorite chair. I have used a white lawn chair in my paintings several times. I like its sensuous shape and the matte color provides an interesting contrast to the objects around it.
The two paintings on the lower-right show my children with the chair, Jane on the far-right, Keith in the middle. The other two paintings are of Keith standing in front of the painting of him standing by the white chair (the painting in the lower-middle). The white chair is prominent in each painting. None of these paintings are done, but the largest is closest to being finished.
I have other paintings with the white chair in them as well.
This underscores something I tell my wife. Not an artist herself, she assumes a painting’s subject matter is the most important thing about a painting. It is, but not in the way she often assumes. The chair lets me play with shapes and colors, so paintings can be about play. She gets that but to her it’s still a painting about Keith. And, of course, that’s right too.
This photo also shows the two palettes I use. The one with mixed neutrals and the other with colors straight from the tube.
In the far background behind the easel, a portion of the large “Lower East Side” is eerily visible, showing me and my wife together.
Oh, I almost forgot. I got rid of the chair some time ago. It’s of a common type, so I might get another set. Um…a painting filled with white chairs.