Grey Pear

I painted this last week and I'm really pleased with it. I like the palette, more muted than I usually use. I didn't paint much this past week because I had a visit from my wonderful old friend Timmy. It was fun and relaxing - we spent 3.5 days catching up, laughing, watching movies, walking the dogs and then seeing my son's play.

It's really amazing how your oldest friends are your best friends, and how - no matter the mistakes, no matter the amount of time that passes - the love is always there.

Grey Pear
6x8 acrylic on panel

Crosshatch Mac

This is the latest acrylic. Getting the hang of it - I like painting in layers. I don't have the patience to do it with oils - you have to wait a day between layers because they take so long to dry.

Crosshatch Mac
Acrylic on 8x8 canvas

Two Greens and a Red

So it's fruit again. But fruit is the old reliable that I go to when I need to figure out the paint so there will be more coming (lucky you!)

Two Greens and a Red
6x6 acrylic on panel

Sorry Zack, More Fruit

Latest fruit still life. Working a little bigger these days - this is 8x10 and I have another 8x10 in the works. I took the week between Christmas and NY off (btw - Happy New Year!) and got 3 full days of painting in. Make that 3 full days in the studio  - procrastination ate up 1/3 of the time. On the last day I didn't start painting until about 3:30 and then lost complete track of time. Before I knew it, it was 9:30. I wish my "real" job was like that.

Apples in Light
8x10 Oil on Canvas

The title is an apology to my son who thinks fruit paintings are "boring". He may have something there.

When the going gets tough, the tough paint a bunch of stuff around it

When I first started painting, I did a lot of fruit. Fruit is plentiful and colorful so I focussed on fruit and veggies because there is an endless supply. But I find them pretty hard to paint.

I decided to see if it had gotten any easier. It hasn't. This time though, instead of wiping the whole thing off, I got silly instead. It was kind of fun to do.

It's a Pear Party
Oil on 12x16 deep canvas

I was hoping that I would be better at not overworking the painting. I'm not. Because a pear is a smooth object, with subtle variations in color and tone - I really struggle with finding just the right shade to lay down and end up redoing it over and over. I'm going to keep trying though - so be prepared to be inundated with more fruit.

2 Macs

It's been way too long since I posted a painting. The past month has been really busy and kind of nutty - too many things going on and too little time to get everything done.

I have been painting though - and making progress. I went back to some smaller canvases because I'd like to get a bunch done for the November and December Open Studios.

This is a 5x5" canvas and it turned out well, although I am getting all realistic again. But that's ok - I'll go with it and see where it takes me.

I started this and after a couple of hours I just wiped the whole thing off - it wasn't working. Then I don't what happened - I started again and it all sort of flowed.

Peach tree

Labor Day weekend meant three days of painting! I worked on two paintings and this is the first one. The other one isn't done yet, and I can see a few things in this one that I'm going to tweak.

It's fruit again, but its still on the tree so technically this is not a still life. :) I have this wonderful, rickety old peach tree in my backyard that produces big juicy peaches that I hardly ever eat. No clue why because I love peaches.

I'm happy with this painting because it captures the light and movement in the leaves. I'm a little shocked to be honest, because I'm starting to get things down on canvas that are close to what I envision. In the beginning it was all a big crap shoot; I never knew what would happen and the paint definitely controlled me, rather then the other way around. It was very frustrating because I knew what I wanted to create but I couldn't do it. I guess all the painting books and magazines I've been pouring over for the past year are starting to actually make a difference.

Back to work tomorrow - ugh. Work is fine and I really have absolutely nothing to complain about, not to mention that it provides the means that allow me to have the studio and paint - but, still - ugh.

So what's with all the fruit?

I've done a few nectarines and still haven't moved to canvas. This is on canvas paper and I'm still working on it. My friend asked me "So what's with all the fruit?". Good question. No real reason accept that it's easy to get, comes in all colors and shapes, and I can easily set up different arrangements. You'd be amazed at how long fruit will last in my little studio refrigerator while I work out a painting. I wouldn't try eating it though.

The fruit is just a tool to help me learn about color, tonal ranges and... well ... how to paint.

I'm in a battle once again with the shadows. The shadow area of the bowl is not right - at the last minute I changed it completely and used a violet made up of alizarin crimson and cerulean blue. It doesn't relate at all with the shadow cast on the table cloth, or really with the bowl, but I'm getting closer.

I'm using Kevin MacPherson's book "Fill your Oil Painting with Color and Light" (it is open on a table next to my easel as I paint) but I'm failing miserably at his suggestion that I put a brush stroke down and leave it. Maybe after another twenty paintings I'll get closer.

More work to do on this: the bowl, background and shadows need work.

Nectarine or Apple?

Here's the latest.I like where I'm going with the fabric - the best part is on the left where it drapes down and sort of fades. Love that. I'm struggling with the nectarine because it looks like an apple to me. But I had a revelation in one of my many endless work meetings while I was doodling.

Nectarines aren't perfectly round. If you look at this nectarine you can see the seam and the uneven outline that the seam causes for the fruit. What came to me today while doodling was that there should be a corresponding seam below the stem which should cause the fruit shape to be uneven. So I'll go back tomorrow and work on that.

The strange lighter streaks in the upper right background is actually a reflection off the wet paint.

Odd Man Out

This is the painting formerly known as 3 Pears on a Blue Plate. Now called "Odd Man Out". I think it looks like the two pears on the left are having a conversation and the poor third wheel is stuck on the outside.

Or, as my brother and I always used to say, "sitting with the coats".

I spent a lot of time on this, and I'm finally pretty satisfied with it. Only thing that bothers me are the brush strokes in the reflection of the top left pear - I may fix that. Also, I'm a little insecure about the composition. But other than out, I'm really pleased.

Since the last photo of this painting - I improved and brightened the background color and changed the shape, tone and color of the shadows. Added more light to the plate, and corrected the shape of the plate. Last - I stopped trying to recreate the exact reflection in the plate, thanks to input from Bill Tyers at the studio. He reminded me that simple is best, and that I don't have to paint everything that I see.

I managed to get a good photo that is pretty accurate in terms of the colors, brush strokes and shadows. The only thing I couldn't get to come through is how bright the lighter side of the pears are, as well as the little piece of light at the top left of the "odd" pear. I couldn't figure out how to do the exposure without overexposing.

Out of focus fruit

This is a really bad photo of a not very good painting. I'm finding that nectarines aren't really easier than pears :).

This is another quick study. I'm struggling with the black background - not really sure how to handle it.

I'll keep plugging away until I figure it out. I spent the day today moving studios, so didn't get to paint. I'll take some photos of the new studio and post them tomorrow.

She's baaaack

I've been gone for about a month, but I'm back. It drove me crazy not to paint, and I didn't expect to be gone this long but it feels great to be painting again.

I've finally moved on from pears and now I'm into nectarines. I find them easier to paint than pears. I'm going to do the same thing I did with the pears and do a bunch of quick studies and then a couple of paintings that take more time. This is the first study that I did.

I did finish the 3 pear painting (which I've named "Odd Man Out") but I don't have a good photo of it yet. Taking photos of paintings is really hard because of the glare, and the pear painting is pretty dark so I'm having trouble getting an accurate photo that shows the colors and light correctly. You can't use a flash because it just bounces right off the paint.

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.

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.

Apples and Oranges

Last of the acrylic paintings. I did this in January just before I started using oils. I forgot about it and found it the other day. It's about 11x17 and done on paper.

I'm moving to a new studio in July. Same building, just a smaller space. I love the space I'm in but it is about 430 sq feet and too expensive. The new space is about half the size and half the money :). I think it will be fine - though I may have to consolidate some of my stuff. The light is really nice in there and I will still have two big windows.

Lemons

Lemons - woo hoo. Another one from last summer. I had a hard time with the blending of the shades because the acrylic paint dries so fast. I will probably try to do a few more like this in oil. It's a fun painting.