And the Pears Keep Coming

My best pear yet. There's a lot I like about this one - the light and shadow of the pear, and the pear's shape. It surprised me when it turned out the way it did, because for a long time the pear looked like a giant turnip - a wierd green turnip. This is a little painting, done on a 4x6 board.

I'm going to work on the background and the shadow. Made some progress last night on shadows thanks to the Kreutz book.

I have this one painting (yes I know, more pears) that I've been working on for about two weeks and it has gone through a lot of changes. I've taken pictures of its evolution and will post it as one post when I'm done.

Amazing that I'm not sick of pears yet, although you probably are.

Happy Anniversary

Today marks 1 year since I started painting! I moved into my studio on June 1 last year. Next to getting married and having my son - this is the best thing I've ever done (granted the marriage thing didn't work out, but no regrets).

My life has changed so much in the past year and all for the good. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm moving to a smaller studio, but I'm still in the same building surrounded by many creative, inspiring people.

I'll miss this great space, but my new one will be nice too -and cheaper so I can buy more art supplies!

Pears III

Here's two photos of the same painting showing progress from one day to the next. I got this fantastic book "Problem Solving for Oil Painters" by Gregg Kreutz which is helping a lot. When I first started painting, I had a hard time seeing the different value and color changes happening in an object, now I have the opposite problem - I see all the color changes and struggle to represent them. Kreutz points out that the role of the artist is to interpret, and to pare (no pun intended) down to the essentials needed to create the image.


In the top picture I had this reflected light on the right side of the plate. In the painting it was really distracting. Removing it made a big difference. I did this before I got the book, but it does illustrate the less is more philosophy.

Pears II

Second pear painting. Spent more time on this one, but didn't finish because I had the lamp too close to the pear on the right and I cooked it! I couldn't figure out why the color kept changing.

I hope you like pears, because I have a few. The hardest thing for me is getting the shadow right on the blue plate. I haven't really been successful yet and I've done 4 or 5 paintings.

Which you will get to see, you lucky devil.

Pears Pears and more Pears

One of the things I struggle with is that I get bored with a subject too quickly. (hmmm, not that I have ADD or anything) But when you look at the really great painters' work, you see that they paint the same subject over and over again. Abby (painting teacher again) suggested that I do this. The reason for doing it is probably obvious, but it helps you work out a painting's problems in subsequent paintings of the same subject.

I really like pears - I love their shape and the different colors and since I don't really get bored looking at them, I decided to do a bunch of paintings of pears.

I found this great ceramic plate at a junky antique store - its a fantastic blue/green color that is a wonderful background for the color of pears.

So far I've done four or five of these paintings and this is the first. It is small - 4x6 - and I did it pretty quickly in about an hour or two. Not a finished painting, but I liked the way it looks so immediate and fresh so I left it as is.

More pears to come.