Part of a series of similarly sized canvases created around the same time-period, Still Life with Copper Pot, Bowl, and Earthenware Pitcher resonates as one of the most successful of the works in employing a new painting technique where I first applied a thin wash of one color—in this painting, raw sienna—over the entire canvas. By blocking in shadows in a second color (raw umber) and dabbing in highlights in a third pigment (white) my composition of three objects roughly emerged. Keeping the paint consistency very wet and somewhat loose by mixing it with additional mineral spirits, with a soft cotton cloth I rubbed out highlights, taking away paint. With a wide brush, I applied more paint to the darker areas, all the time correcting the forms and range of highlights and shadows in a back-and-forth process of removing and adding paint to precisely render the earthenware pitcher, copper pot, and white bowl. This technique was challenging because the paint had to be worked quickly before it had a chance to even slightly begin to dry, and it had to be done “all in one go,” so to speak, while the paint remained wet and pliable. The canvas could not later be reworked. Because of the effect I wanted to achieve, once I started, I could not stop until the painting was finished. 

In this series, I was also interested in eliminating the traditional horizontal line of the foreground (the surface on which the three objects rest) and background (the wall behind the surface) to blend both elements as one continuous, elusive space. I had another goal. I had always been interested in using the architectural weave of the linen canvas as texture. Here, the paint is uncharacteristically thin, and the threaded weave is left noticeably visible.