lemon

Yesterday I made a still life box, and I spent all evening painting wood panels and foam core to use as bases and backgrounds. I have a variety of colors to choose from. I just need larger collection of drapery and more props- something to look for at flea markets and antique stores. I tested my system out by setting up a lemon and painting it.

foil wrapped chocolate egg

Oil on masonite 4x5. I had to go out and purchase a special green paint for the foil wrapper. I was torn between emerald and viridian but chose the latter. Placing the egg on white paper resulted in some colorful reflections.

Ink well

Yellow mum

6x8 oil on canvas. The lights are mostly rubbed out with a brush or cloth. Only four more days until it's officially spring! Flowers are tricky- at least for me. The bottle was the easy part.

two charcoal studies

I drove over to Haverill this morning for a figure and still life set up with the Bradford Artists. The figure drawing is charcoal on 18x24 Rives' off white paper and the still life is charcoal on 8x10 MiTeints white pastel paper. It's so nice to get together with a group of artists and forget about the economy and real life in general for a couple of hours. Even with the frustration and difficulty of the work, it's very calming at the same time. Two artists commented that they were amused to see me going back and forth from one subject to another. One of them gave me a nickname: Speedy. Whenever the model took a break, I hurried over to the still life. When the model resumed his pose, I ran back to my easel. There was some wonderful work being done in this group, as usual.
After lunch I continued up the highway into Newburyport to see if the ice floes were floating down the river yet, but no luck. I hope I don't miss them again this year.

apple

The main challenge here was to paint the part of the apple in shadow while retaining the round shape. I like this painting, but I would like more contrast in the apple. After the paint dries, I am going to try adding a green glaze on the shadow side. I did learn during this painting to add the complementary color instead of merely using a darker red to indicate the apple in shadow.

I used small swatches of color on paper to match to the actual objects and that was a huge help. It's a technique that I can use outdoors as well. A color isolator (i.e. a piece of cardboard with a 1.5" hole in it) is an aid that I need to start using regularly. Sometimes it can be tricky to decide what color something is when there is so much going on in the scene- especially the influence of other colors.

I read that while painting en plein air, Corot was in the habit of throwing a black cloth and another of white right on the ground before him and to do the same farther away. The cloths helped him to judge values.

onion

I painted an onion for my painting session with the Bradford artists but I wasn't happy with it so I started over at home. I like this one much better. I am about to begin two paintings of an apple: one using the grisaille technique and the other wet on wet painted onto a bright yellow background.

Gallery Dreams

I just discovered a website which will place any image in a virtual museum gallery http://www.dumpr.net/museumr.php This is an almost-finished pastel still life for the PSNH members' show. I should really start to think about completing it. The actual painting is only 19"x20"

Radish

This cheery little radish was such a joy to paint. After a very hectic week with not much time for my art, it was sublime to sit down in my studio and know that I could spend all day on this if I wanted to. The part that gave me the most trouble was the very fine root. I painted it twice, then finally substituted the radish to complete that part of the painting. It still took two more tries but had fun all the while because I find the little threads winding around it fascinating.

Printer's Ink

I discovered this antique ink bottle in Concord, MA in a shop called Nesting. It's a fascinating place in which to browse around, especially if you love old, worn things as I do. I will have to go back to buy some of the old buttons, bar tokens, and clock gears. The place was filled with still life possibilities. It's rare that I come across an item that I absolutely cannot live without, but I just had to paint this bottle, so it has a new home with me.

For some reason, I had trouble starting this painting. I was not feeling very confident and couldn't decide on a base color. I finally told myself to get over it and mindlessly slapped green paint down. Most of it got scrubbed off, but it stained the linen a pretty color. The linen is called Centurion and it came in a sampler pad. The surface has such a luscious feel to it that I am wondering if it was oil-primed. I thought I would have to take a few days on this, but it took the layers of paint very well. Centurion just might be my new favorite painting surface.

brown pear

I set up this pear on some white linen. The cloth is both lovely to paint, and to paint on. I have had little experience with rendering cloth and am finding it very difficult. The edge of this fabric forms the prettiest little ripples when you gather it and that is enough incentive for me to keep trying.

Baking with lemons

4.5" x 10" oil on linen panel.

Hubby brought home lemons this morning with plans to make a lemon/cornmeal pound cake. Luckily he did not use them all because I had my eye on this one. It took almost the whole lemon to get a satisfactory peel because I couldn't get it to hang down right. I almost gave up, but I really wanted to paint a lemon this way.

Please tell me that this oil painting looks like a pomegranate and not a Christmas ornament. I went shopping the other day for subject matter. This is the only time I will enter a grocery store and not crab about it. I bought a beautifully shaped long brown pear, and two smaller green pears. When I passed a display of pomegranates, I remembered that last year at the annual holiday arts and crafts festival, a regular customer of mine asked if I had any paintings of pomegranates. Regretfully, I only had apples and pears. So I went ahead and bought one and painted it today since I don't know how long pomegranates last. I also have no idea how to eat it. But I do love painting fruit!

This is done on a 5x7 linen panel that I prepared myself. At the fabric store, I bought two kinds of lovely linen, one fine and the other a little coarser. I glue it onto a board, and when dry, I apply the gesso. For the painting, I used a technique described by a very talented and friendly artist named Ann who I met at the Manchester Art Gallery this week.

http://www.manchester-artists.org/

It involves using a large brush to apply a dark background (paint mixed with pale drying oil) then using a rag to work subtractively which is useful for blocking in the composition and helping to create the values as the painting progresses. I used opaque paint sparingly and let the beautiful linen texture show through. This technique is lots of fun and I can't wait to use it again.

Reality changes: There was a strong highlight below the stem but it looked too much like the previously mentioned ornament, so I had to tone it down. The tiny brown stem spikes were curled under but I rendered them as sticking straight up after googling the fruit to see stem variations. This helps prevent the shape of the fruit from being too round. Now that I have painted my first pomegranate, I am curious to find out how other artists handle this tricky fruit. Maybe tomorrow I'll slice it open and paint the interior.