Practice plums 1 6x8 inch oil on panel

I have another jam jar label to do a painting for, so I have done a couple of warm ups. In Italy when the season is finished for something there is no more of it to be had, so I thought to brush up on plum while there still are some.

Italian Painting/ Italian plums

Actually, it's not quite this red.... and the red is not uniform. Again, the camera.

I am out of reading material (AAAUGH!) so I am all over the internet reading people's essays and looking at painting, good, bad, student, pro -- tutto. I should have done this earlier....
Fascinating! some say, I hate line! I do everything to avoid it...Painting is not drawing. And then, I love line, it is another element to use in painting, part of the rich vocabulary. And so on, very entertaining. But what Sargent says has been tremendously helpful to me in the last few days: Painting is the arrangement of tones, he says.  That is a big statement and a clear one - In observational painting, color cannot be the king. It has to be value.

Tomorrow the first of a long line of visitors arrives and I must dismantle the studio and go outside to the landscape.....(so scary!) but I want to learn it, therefore, into the breach!