The Evolution of a Pear Painting

I've been working on this for a couple of weeks while reading the Kreutz book mentioned earlier. This painting is done on board, and I think it is 9x12.

Here's the various changes over the past couple of weeks:

Phase 1: Scary to say, but I think I might like this one the best. It's scary only because I have spent about 2 weeks working on it since then.
Phase 2:


Phase 3:

Phase 4:

Where I am today - I need to spend some time looking at it and figuring out what it needs.




Here's a photo of the still life. The angle is a little different, but you get the idea of what I was looking at.

My new favorite artist

Karin Jurick is a really great painter. She's inspirational - she started painting in 2004 and she is very successful, self-taught and creates really beautiful paintings. Here's her latest:
Check out her blog to see some of her amazing figurative paintings.

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.