So Enchantment came about after I painted Tempting Fruit earlier this year. I loved the way that the chocolate cupcake in that painting just seemed like an over the top amalgam of all the wiley ways it could look like a tempting treat.
That painting made me think of other romantic gardens. So of course it was a short step from Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights to Fragonard’s french rococo garden in The Swing. Prior to painting Enchantment I baked and frosted several cupcakes, really going for an over the top frothy look for the cupcake like the heroine in Fragonard’s The Swing. From there I painted Cupcake Digest, to study the cupcake in isolation prior to placing it in a larger environment.
I had two ways to go with my inspiration to create a Fragonard inspired banquet piece in my food series with the little pink pear. I could either couch my food actors in a landscape or I could create an entirely domestic/still life version of The Swing.
So I decided to do both:
Watch my blog to see the landscape version in my Earthly Delights project, It’s currently on the easel and should be finished soon.
For Enchantment I decided to explore that domestic setting because I really loved the potential for changing the perspective in the typical still life setting from something observed at a safe distance, and from slightly above, to one closer to the viewpoint of one of the still life objects, or of a bugs eye view. What was contained in the picture plane now contains the picture plane. It’s not a separate world, it is the world.