Asters and Olive Oil Bottle (6"square)

This is a funny one -- I inadvertently got that one blossom dead center, just like a bull's eye.

Asters in Blue Jar (7x5")

I have these grocery store asters, so dark purple they are almost black. My thinking: put black behind them so it's really somber and keep the color for the bottom half. I could have pushed it farther! I will give it another go.

Clementines, Guava (6"square)

I had a great trip and there was lots of time for pondering while traveling as it took many flight legs to actually arrive in the Wilderness. Getting back in the studio is usually rocky because for the first day or two I seem to have forgotten everything about painting, but soon it is ok. I'll keep to simple things until my motor memory kicks in. It is so good to go away and so good to come home.

Red Pears, Sugarplums

I'm off tomorrow to Yellowstone with an old friend and will return next week fresh and invigorated. See you then ---

Luke Flexner, 1 year old! (10x8")

This handsome boy is my grandson, spare heir extraordinare! He is just about to celebrate his first birthday.

Red Cabbage and Squash (8x6"), Two Pears, (6"square)

The painting on the top is the 200th painting! The painting on the bottom is one of the first ones I did for the blog. The return for effort has been enormous and thrilling - I can't think of any other single effort I have ever made that has yielded so much (possibly childbirth, but even that's iffy) OR any other experience that has given such clear insight about how to proceed. You just have to work hard and regularly and you will keep getting better. How upbeat is that?

Cut Peach

Calm, straightforward peach on dark green paper, which was sort of a bear. So much variety in the green, blue green, yellow green, brownish green, and then all the value changes too, lots of info to process.

Pecans and Sugarplums, (6"square)

This painting was done at the tail end of my fury (now I am spent). I just threw the stuff down and got to painting it, being as physical with the paint as possible, using more of it and pushing it around, shaping the space. I don't know what any of that is worth, but I like this painting, both the application of paint and the rythm of the images. Probably more could have been made of the latter without the blue strip at the bottom, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Peanut Butter Cupcake and Fork (6"square)

I am now shunned at the fancy pants cupcake store, because I make icing requirements (not too much, not too little, only in the center so the cake shows, etc.) and I only take two or three of them and don't place a large order. So I am going back to my grocery store cupcakes where the bakery staff is friendly and they are excited to be supplying subject matter for Art. And you can get 6 for $3.

Still Life With Pecan (8x6")

Today was a horrible painting day. I began with a prepared 8x10" board and a set up with a bowl of prickly pear apples, odd shaped bananas and some pecans. It was the bowl I couldn't get, and I couldn't leave it until I got it, and I never got it, had to wipe it. Even if I had got the bowl, it was looking.....academic. AAAAAUUUGH! So at 3:00 pm I chucked the 8x10 and started a 6x8 for today's post, which you see here. Still pretty tight though, and I was feeling really furious and thinking that fury would propel me somewhere, but no! Still in the same place.

Two Tubes (7x5")

This is another attempt at the business card image, but as Linda Popple told me, I can just take a piece of an already existing painting to use, so I will. However, it was refreshing to just do two forms with lots of space, no ramming and cramming things into the composition.

Brushes, Paint Tubes (5x5")

I thought I would try for an image that would be ok to put on a business card, as I need some, and I like the quirky products at Moo.com. They have a space for artwork and info on one side and a variety of patterns on the other, or interesting stripes, etc. So this is the first of the possible choices. The tricky bit here is that if you grow to dislike your painting or you radically improve or launch in a completely new direction, you are stuck. But then, if you buy them and improve radically, it would be a small price to pay and you could wallpaper the bathroom with the patterned side out.

Baby Bananas (8x6")

Another tortured composition, but again, a man's reach must exceed his grasp. I am fascinated with all the tropical fruit available here in Texas - but I guess you can get it everywhere now. I have a kitchen full of all sorts of stunted or misshapen banana related fruits and those prickly pear apples, all just waiting for their turn.

Fish, Dish (6x8")

I got this little perch from my regular fish place in Austin. Usually they last a couple of paintings, but this one was gone from the beginning. We are so hot here, and really wet still after 15 inches of rain in one day. We are steaming in our own juices.

Stone Still Life, Orange Slice (2 1/2 x 7 1/2")

These little ones are calming to do, pleasant, a rest.

Stones, Shells, Thimble (2 1/2 x 7 1/2")

This is very small, I was just working out some ideas for a longer larger piece. I had trouble photographing because of - do not know, could not get the contrast right.

Almost Pie (6x8")

These were pitiful little apples, no one would ever make a pie of them. But they were so darkly red they were interesting to paint and to try to balance out the dark with the light of the cloth. I am loving the light box! You can control the light, it's a miracle.

Hayes (8x6")

This is the newest addition to our family, Hayes, 7 hours after he was born.

Cupcake Boy and Lucien Freud (8x6")

I have a new light box and new lights, so I can manipulate everything more easily - I'm so excited. My studio has been draped with extension cords and teetering boxes to block the wrong light and amplify the right light, now there is room to move around and see the set up well. I do like painting these fluted gold cupcake papers, they seem sort of -- French.

Apples, Green Plate (6"square)

My studio time today was sandwiched between two obligations, so I had to get right to it and get finished fast. I often find that is a good situation, because I have to focus. Many times I come to a point where things are not going as I had hoped and I say to myself, ok, I've lost this one, so I'll just go forward and see what I can get out of it anyway. This very often turns out all right and it did today. I was trying to keep my edges very soft, not by going back over them and fixing them, but by getting them that way with the first stroke. And I like the abstract quality and the density of the color. And the brown is a good brown! Also, I like the scale of the piece, so small but compact and energized. I feel like I have made good progress by doing the last 185 paintings.

Onion, Garlic, Freud (4x8")

It is not possible to photograph this without glare because of the black, so this will have to do for now. This small size works much better with fewer things in it, I have to fight the inclination to pack things into every possible space. But wait, maybe that could work in a good way, maybe I could deliberately fill every inch with something, maybe I could do it serially like Paul Wonner (thank you, Lorraine Shirkus, lorraineshirkus.blogspot.com). I will try it....

Peaches, Freud Sleeve (4x8")

Another one of the envelope size. These are fun to do. I like the partial aspect of it, part of something visible that can't be recognized. There is too much stuff in this one, though. I really like the proportion of 1:2 and hope to work more with it......and much larger.

Cupcake on a Pedestal (8x6")

Another of the fancy pants cupcakes. I deliberately tried to stay all pink-orange in this with the exception of the marble. I did have a green underpainting which you can see a bit of, that was hugely distracting. I wonder why the red underpainting is ok and the green hard to work on.

Apples, Freud sleeve (3 1/2 x 8")

This is another end piece of hardboard I kept to play on. I bought a bag of these tiny impossibly dark apples to paint because they keep forever and don't melt under the lights, and I am not tempted to eat them. I have a beautiful Lucien Freud book that came with an impressive sleeve, and for some time I have been using the sleeve as a prop for cloth or paper behind a set up. So I scooted the apples against the sleeve (you see the letters in the upper left corner) and went looking for a suitable sheet of colored paper to prop up against it. When I came back to it, I thought the darkness of the apples needed another weighted color, so I thought why not use the black, and then I really looked at the letters and thought.......

If only I could channel Lucien.

Mechanical Bird and Candy (3x7")

I had some leftover ends of gessoed panel to use for playing.