Double Peanut Butter Cupcake (6"square)

This is the last of three paintings done for a friend's daughter, who is just graduating from college and getting her first apartment. I thought all three should be in sugary colors, to wish her a life full of sweetness. The hand mirror was the most fun part of it, letting me repeat that pattern in the upper portion and get a slab of light in there as well. I 'm so impressed with these store bought cupcakes, they are so over the top.

Cupcake with Japanese Sash (6"square)

This is whim-based composition. I kept adding things and discarding until something made all the parts lock together. The black balances out the dark of the cupcake and the busyness of the print, and the pink is just happy.

Cupcake for Botticelli (6" square)

This was fun. Also my own baked cupcakes were so pedestrian that I went back to try to find the cupcake shoppe again and this time they were open and sure enough, they had the Marilyn Monroe of cupcakes, the Venus of cupcakes! And they cost like Marilyn, too. But anything for art.

Plate of Peaches (6"square)

OKAY! This is a good one for me!

Because: (1)it is unlabored and still fresh (2) drawing is reasonably accurate (3) color is unusual but still works, even though I used brown and (4) it all hangs together (most important and mysteriously difficult).

Box O Peaches (6x10")

This one was interesting to do, because it is long and narrow, and I tried to have something in the middle and then something strong enough in the two ends to balance it out. The color in this shot is not so good -- but then I was just given an old laptop pc and have been playing with it, and the color on that monitor is horrible! So I don't know what goes out there to cyberspace....nor to whom. So I guess it just is whatever it is.

Bird, Cupcake, Striped Cloth (6"square)

I am now reduced to making my own cupcakes, but I found these gold paper cups, so it's not all bad. There is definitely a learning curve with the icing though. I did find some professional icing already mixed up in a can, and once you squeeze it out of the pastry tube it lasts forever in that shape.

Peaches, aster (6x6")

So...this is not Beethoven awkward-the acceptable kind of awkward- with that top right peach balancing on the head of the lower peach. It must be an issue of the value under the peach that is the problem, because it really was positioned like that in the set up. But still... I always like the photos with the church steeple growing out of someone's head, etc. It's just so wrong but in a good way.

Four Peaches, Napkin (6x8")

My brain is completely fried tonight from wrestling with computer things....

All I remember about this is that I wanted that crisp napkin, something I ironed before I moved here 5 years ago, and the four soft peaches. I will probably never iron again.

Cupcake Boy, Radiating (6" square)

When I set the cupcake down on the cloth, by accident all the forms spread out from his head. Are there no accidents? I left it and painted it like that. I actually like awkwardness. I read a comment on Beethoven long ago that he was clumsy in his music. I have liked him better ever since, and when I hear him I really listen for evidence of that clumsiness.

Cardinal and Double Olive Cupcake (6"square)

I feel good about this one. I have been working with (and not posting because of general horribleness) the color brown. I haven't been able to get good or even believable browns, and it is such a noble color, rich and homey. This is my most successful use so far. Also, the olives work much better doubled. I have worked through my last cupcake, the cake and icing is so hard nothing will stick. I just discovered there is a cupcake store in town, so maybe my cupcake range will expand soon, different colored icings, different toppings, different sizes, etc. Very exciting.

Peaches, Grapes on White Napkin (8"Square)

I was intent on getting a cross for a composition, a strong vertical and horizontal. There is sort of a little gap between the two groups of fruit that thwarted this goal and then the fold of cloth runs thought it to further draw your eye down. Somedays it's always something.

Cupcake with Olive (7x5")

As I got finished with this one I could see what should have been done ... the cupcake form needs to extend farther into the upper section, so I need multiple olives rather than that one pitiful one. I will have another go at it.

Stacked Still Life: Orange, Blue Cup

I like stacking. It's playful and at its best it can be elegant. I guess there are at least two varieties: actual stacking, like pancakes, and overlapping stacking, as in overlapping forms. And then you could overlap and stack, too. I like crowded space and empty space together.

Cupcake, Cardinal (8x6")

If I were to evaluate this, I would say it is too much information, not quite working. But I want to get just a hair short of that and so must risk overshooting. I have to say too, I have learned so much about white doing these cupcakes. The best icing whites are warm, with red and yellow in them and the best shadows for them are pthalo blues. This cupcake's icing is sort of grey because I used titanium white straight from the tube. I was mad because I couldn't get it white enough and I strongarmed it by slapping down dead white. A cautionary tale.

Peaches, Grapes on Patterned Cloth (6x8")

I took one more shot at it before the peaches are spoiled. The cloth is so much fun it sort of paints itself. It's just the right sort of repeat - not too close together and organic, so no worries about perspective, etc. Also, I bought myself a new brush, a Monarch (Windsor Newton) #10 bright and it makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE! I recommend it. They are on sale at ASW right now at a serious discount.

Peaches on Patterned Cloth (6x6")

I have done a Matisse!

Cupcake and Mechanical Bird (6x8")

I played with positioning a long time to get some sort of relationship going with the two objects and still have some reasonable composition. This is a wonderful little mechanical bird I got from Design Within Reach, it has a tiny battery in it that makes the bird sing when the light shifts or there is movement. A great burglar alarm if you live alone. Which I don't, I live with a family of big burly men, lumberjacks and bikers. I digress. The painting needed something cool and green so I worked it into the shadow, doesn't show much here. It should have had a green thing IN it to start with probably. I do like that cool pink, though in the background. And my cupcake people are getting much better at the icing.

Plums on Checks (6"square)

So...back in the saddle again.

I wanted to paint these plums on this strongly patterned cloth to see if I could make them show up. I mean -- what is the line of confusion, where does it exist relative to comprehension of the whole, and is it pleasurable to see, or just irritating? I see that there is a long long way to go before it gets confusing. I wonder if it can be confusing in a good way, not bewildering but exciting (best case scenario) Somebody must already have done this..... let me know who if you know.

Dangerous Liasons

There is no post today and probably tomorrow because, as John Malkovich said to Michelle Pfieffer in Dangerous Liasons: It is beyond my control.

Peaches on Blue Cloth (6x6")

Better peaches! I used a large brush and slapped (in a thoughtful way) broad areas of color in and was done in 45 minutes. This is no masterpiece or anything, but the way of painting it is the way I want to be painting and seeing.

Peaches, Purple Cloth

OOOOhh, bad painting day yesterday. Everything wrong and awful, lots of wiping. These peaches were the best of the batch, so I'm posting them. Today I'm going right back to peaches, because I want to get them down in a few strokes, identify the shape, put it down, done. And my brain doesn't easily identify the lights and darks because the pigment of the skins is such a variety of colors. This just needs patient attention and repetition, I hope.

Cupcake With Marble (5x5")

A deracinated day today -- only time for a weenie cupcake with a marble.

Boy Cupcake with Aggressive Icing (7x5")

The cupcake people can't understand why I am buying so many cupcakes, so finally I told them I was painting them, doing paintings of them, not actually painting on the cupcakes. Then they were thrilled and wanted to make very good cupcakes for the paintings and so made cupcakes with piles and piles of frosting. See above. The other five cupcakes are sculptures in themselves with twirls and curlicues that defy my painting skills. They must be eaten.

Tomatoes, EVOO 2 (6x6")

This is the second painting of the two, in this one I worked the green stems over the red.

No discernible difference, really.

Pink Still Life/ Rubber Ducky

10x8 inches

It is getting easier. In each painting there are parts of it I like and the paint handling is getting better and more confident. I need to use more paint I think... I like a fat oily look to the surface, and it pushes better when you have a mass of it. More experience! It is a huge help to limit my use of smaller brushes, that was a great discovery.

Blue Still Life/Matchbook

A whopping 15x15 inches!

I used a larger brush for this, at least 3/4 inch, and it was easier to get the broad shapes down because the brush won't let you do other wise. Also, I am loving cutting and preparing my own panels, no searching, ordering, waiting for a size, etc. I am finding that the camera doesn't take the same quality pictures of large pieces as small ones-- am I crazy, or is there some reason for this...please advise if you know.

Tomatoes, EVOO (6x6")

I am having a little rebellion from my cupcake supply team (too busy, can't I have a carton of the ones with sprinkles?) and so must order them and wait like a civilized person. In the meantime, I investigated this question: better to do the stems first, then the tomato, or the stems after the tomato, working the green over the red? In this one, the stems went first. It is all a question of edges and how to get the ones you want. Plus keeping the color clean, of course. And probably all kinds of other stuff I don't know yet.

Fruit Plate, Knife

This one is photographing very murky, and the color is actually cleaner than this shot. Something gets altered between my photo program and the posting. I was happy with the many soft greys, none of which are muddy in the real painting. I realize excuses are bad form, but sometimes you just can't help yourself.