Still Life Oil Paintings by Nicole Pellegrini

This page showcases some of the still life paintings I've created through the years, many of which are featured on home decor and accessory items available in my CafePress store. I'll let you know a little bit more about each painting, all of which were created in oil and the originals are already varnished, framed and ready to hang in your home...should you be interested in an original! For this artist, every painting is always for sale...

_{Image above: "Still Life with Olive Oil Bottle", an original oil painting by Nicole Pellegrini (sockii)}

I love painting onions, both in large still life compositions or close up, by themselves. An art teacher once told us students to practice painting onion skin as it is very similar to painting human flesh tones - and he was right! This painting was based on a great close-up photograph I had of an onion. I loved how some of the outer skin was peeling away, almost like a flower blooming. I sketched the image quickly in burnt umber paint, and then built up numerous layers of glazed color to get the translucent look of onion skin. It's one of my favorite still life works that I've created.

This painting was another great challenge, but a lot of fun to work on. Plums have unique skins, both opaque and translucent at the same time. I wanted to capture their softness, as well as the rich blue-red-purple colors of the skin.

This was a fun one. I had a unique photograph of a cracked open coconut on a textured, marble-like countertop. Painting white objects is always a challenge because there are actually so many colors that can be used to give them depth and shape, here the open cavity of the coconut. I also liked the outer shell of the coconut with its rough, "hairy" skin. This was painted again after a quick sketch in burnt umber paint, primarily focusing on getting the roundness of the coconut correct. The background was completed through numerous glazes of thin color.

This one was actually extremely difficult to paint! Trying to capture the glossy outer skin of an avocado, along with its rough, bumpy surface, was no small challenge. I started this one with a grisaille underpainting and slowly added the greens and browns for the skin, working back and forth in mostly opaque color application.

This painting took a great deal of time and work to capture the glass bottle realistically, and the way it reflected and distorted the cloth behind it and the pear to the bottom left. It's painted on gesso board, again using the verdaccio approach to underpainting and then color glazing.

I'll admit papayas aren't my favorite fruits to eat! But they are pretty and have a lot of variety in the coloration of their skins, which make them fun to paint. Yellows, browns, reds and greens on the skin of the papaya were captured here in multiple glazes of thin color.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour through my still life "gallery." Comments and critique are always appreciated...and be sure to check back in the future to see what new work I've added. Thank you!