[CR] Still life from nature

Inga is an experienced student in drawing. She has four years of education in children's art school. She has been attending my classes since the beginning of autumn, improving her skills in watercolors, but one day she asked me: "Can I ever try to work with oil? I have never painted in such a technique and would like to know how to do it"

Just one day she saw one of my unfinished oil works, and she was curious. I promised her that at the next lesson we will paint with these paints.

I did not find any spare canvas, but there were two pieces of primed cardboard in my store, and I offered to work on them. We installed a geranium flower gown in a pot, putting a light drapery for the background and started the painting lesson.

First we made the basic, rough elements of the picture, while picking up the paint so that it looked believable. We worked with synthetic brushes, as they are very well suited for thin oil layers. It took us two hours to finish the first stage.

At the next lesson, which also lasted two hours, we painted the details of the still life. I explained to the student how to dilute paints, how to work with linseed oil and solvents, what techniques in oil painting exist of , and also shared with her all the subtleties and secrets of art.

At this point we almost finished with the flower, but when Inga went home after class, I thought that in the still life something is missing. Then I brought a couple of red apples from the kitchen, put them next to the flower and continued painting. And when after about half an hour I looked at my finished work, the picture looked much more harmonious than before.

One more week later, Inga came to class, and I shared with her the news that now two apples in the still life will be present. Since I finished my work last time, all I have to do is help the girl with her painting. I just made sure that Inga wasn't wrong about the details, because she did everything very well. Soon her version of a flower with apples stood next to my work and someone's inexperienced look may not even distinguish the work of a student from the work of a mentor.

After a couple of weeks, when my still life has long dried up, our friend Franco came to visit our home. He lives in Italy, and he always like my art. As soon as he saw the still life oil, he immediately bought it from me and promised that as soon as he returned to his home, he get a picture into decent frame and hang a still life in his kitchen.

This is the story of the creation of two almost identical pictures.