This painting was born during my early painting days when my art teacher challenged us to paint something ordinary but make it interesting. I had a lot of difficulty figuring out how to accomplish those seemingly diametrically opposed tasks - ordinary and interesting.

One afternoon while waiting for my next piano student to arrive, my eyes focused on the cup of pencils on the edge of the piano. I use these pencils to write student lesson plans and mark their sheet music.

From my perspective standing there, the cup was in the center of my mental image with just the periphery of the piano in view. The only way I could capture that mental image was to paint the picture with the canvas tilted in a diamond shape, rather than square or rectangular. Thus, I was able to be ordinary and interesting at the same time.

Happy music and art, Cinder LeDell