There’s something to be learned every time you pick up a paintbrush, no matter how long you’ve been painting…no matter what your subject is. A couple of months ago, a young woman I know asked me to do a painting with a pool theme for her basement. She and her husband had just gotten a handsome pool table with gray felt instead of the traditional green, and she wanted to liven up the setting with a painting on the large, blank, paneled wall behind the table.

I’m not going to lie to you–I don’t think cues and racked pool balls are very exciting subjects–but they do provide enough material for a still life and enough of a change from what I ordinarily paint to make the process enjoyable. My very first paintings were still lifes, mostlly because you can learn so much about proportion, placement, color, value, light…everything you need to paint anything…so why not a pool table?