From Bananas to Dolphanas

In late May 2016 I decided to go back and try some still life work out painting from observation in the Studio. I started with bananas always a great subject with watercolour.

All the paintings featured here are original watercolours at 22 x 30 inches. It didn’t take me long to start playing around with the imposition of the banana leaves both with the shadow’s and in the plaster work, a technique I’ve used for years now, great fun to play around with.

I continued to develop and understand the subject. It was the placement of a one of the bruises on the central banana in the painting below that gave me the idea of the Dolphins.

By this time my bananas were aging a little so they were developing more markings. I added the tails and the Dolphana was born.

It seemed a natural progression to place them into a bowl. It struck me right away that the table cloth could look more like water and the bowl became boat.

Another natural progression was the introduction of the apple as a play thing, it takes the concept onto a very different level.

By this time the construction of the drawing was becoming ever more complex. To identify every shape in watercolour is very hard every line has to count.

I’ve called it a day at this point, it’s been great fun. All of this work is available, feel free to email me at info@mjforster.com if you have any questions.