It has taken me a long time to work out how specifically I seek out modular forms. I’ve known that I like repeating similar objects in the same composition but it is only recently that I have noticed how many of my still lives are made up of these modular forms be they bottles or Playmobil figures, Bison or Fir Trees.

Five Green Bottles.  Painting Stolen in France. (oil on canvas. Cat 155. 27″ x 22″)
Involving repeated modular forms in a composition is a nice way to study distortion.
My drawings are about precision, I try to pin down the distortion as shapes edge away from the centre; as vertical lines rise and fall from the centre of the composition they bend inwards and a similar thing happens along the horizontal axis (so the shelf appears narrower to the right and left of the centre).

(Photograph of subject for Berlin Beer Bottles)
Even when I’m not drawing a row of the same object I look for geometric shape, circles and rectangles. Getting ellipses dead right is vital; the specific shapes of the base or the rims of cups and bowls and the tops and bottoms of labels on wine bottles all provide clues to their positions and their relation to one and other.

(My growing herd of Playmobil Bison)
I’ve been collecting these toy Bison for a large canvas, a herd of Bison moving across the plain, and the Fir Trees for a Playmobil Forest, only a small one so far, a wood or perhaps a thicket.

(My Playmobil Fir Trees)