Still Life With Plates, 36 inches square, oil on canvas

This started out in realism and finished itself in abstraction, my old home.

I  have a thing about plates, dishes --- I love them. Also fun to work biggish  again, to really swing the arm and use fat brushes and palette knives and work in a frenzy, collapse into a chair and evaluate for a couple of hours. Realism is  a different way of working (for me so far), a lot of technical stuff (and some of it crap I think, but which?)  needs to be established and then I think, transcended. Oy, I don't know the answers.

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 Paintings/ Nectarines

I been painting hard and happily, very proud of myself. Two weeks and my time in Italy is over.
I've  been having to wipe lots of things but am not too distressed about this for some reason. So good to be painting. This fruit painting is a warm up for the second half of a portrait, the first half of which went swimmingly and then made me afraid I would lose it in the second session. I thought the warm up would get me past this and it did! And then I lost the portrait anyway. I always try to get everything done in one session for this reason, but maybe I am at a crossroad now, maybe I have to learn how roll over into that next session with some - aplomb. Because everything  can't reasonably be finished in one or two sessions, too fatiguing, then bad decisions.
These nectarines were enormous and perfectly ripe and sweet the day I bought them from my fruit guy, whose shop is right outside my door. All the fruit is perfect.

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!

Italian Paintings/ Five Apricots

I had only an 8x6 panel to work on and wanted to do a string of the apricots, those that were not too badly decomposed. I like that format, the length twice the height. Although I tried not to get the forms half exactly in the middle, somehow they ended up there. I have cropped the second one here to be what I was wanting --  but I sort of like the big slab of yellow on the top one, and more air.
These apricots look all bloody because of camera  color distortion, no clue how to fix this.

Italian Paintings / Apricots

The apricots are in season here so there are mountains of them in the green grocers. My Italian family is making jam  from the trees on their farm, and they say there is a jar with my name on it.  The afternoons are hot now and the twilights very long, perfect for eating outside and just sitting still to watch the light.

Italian Paintings/ Prunes on a Pillowcase

These are Italian plums (prunes) from the market next door, and the pillowcase from my bed.

And THIS is a little frittata made with new laid eggs. The yolks were orange! I threw in some cipollini onions and a slice of a plum tomato in the fold -- green unfiltered olive oil on the whole thing. On Italian bread, with a little more oil and some salt.

Tomato and lemon

I'm rolling along here, not flipping out about small stuff, just trying to get a good routine going without too much crushing self criticism....some aspects of the studio and camera not optimal, but SO WHAT is my present attitude. This is Italy.

There are 400 kinds and shapes of tomatoes here, pleated, bulbous,  pickle shaped, grape sized, cabbage sized - I am just agog at the produce.

 Painting went a little easier today. I am carving up my days into painting/eating segments: morning,  any kind of cheese and tomatoes on toasted bread, LARGE espresso; painting, lunch, wide selection of pizza by the slice next door to me; painting, weenie nap, study Italian verbs, dinner late --9 at least--1000 choices for take out or if very good painting day, then reward of dinner outside at cafe on corner. This hasn't happened yet. Also, there is a beautiful lake here for swimming, which must be done. 

LA Found Plants 3

Found this hibiscus-like flower in a hedge on the way to the Asian Grill and Donut Shop early this morning.  I used my green thrift store polo shirt and my mouse pad.  Also, I have been using medium so the paint is more slippery, trying to have the paint application be more fluid.

LA Found Plants 2

Boy o boy, thanks for the kind comments. Props a girl up. Today I made it to Lowe's and back without killing anybody or getting lost. Bought another clamp lamp and regular bulb and spent some time on the ladder in the temp studio trying to figure out how to position the lights. These lemons are from the tree in the back yard here, and there is a tree next door loaded with grapefruit, owners absent. And all sorts of strange succulents in neighbors' gardens.....

Found Plants 1

Yo.
Made it to LA.
Am working temporarily in a dark place (physically, not noir-ish) and so have bought a $35 LED bulb. Noon light!  But the shadows are very dark and sharp, so I have to think on this, what to do.

Farm Girl Jam Jar Labels, Orange Marmelade and Red Pepper Relish

These paintings will be used on the labels for Farm Girl Orange Marmalade and Red Pepper Relish.
(All these products, delicious.)
Am in the studio breakdown stage for the move and having anxiety, Oy!
These may be my last two until I am rooted somewhere again.

Bluebonnets 3 (2013)

This time I tried more color. I'm working the flowers first because they jump all over the place like tulips, then doing moving stuff, then going back to do a different section of the painting, etc.  I am using an led lightbulb ($14!) which emits very little heat so the flowers don't wilt and move as much. This will be a great light to paint a chicken by, which is fun and I haven't done for a while. The incandescent bulb pretty much cooks the chicken so you have to race.

Bluebonnets 2 (2013)

I've got two done, so happy .....  getting an hour here and there in between crises.  Sometimes it's just enough to be painting!

Bluebonnets 1 (2013)

Been gone so long.
I am in the middle of moving from Texas to Los Angeles, and oh, moving is hellish.
I stole a morning to paint the bluebonnets, which I have done every March I have lived here.
I have 6 other panels prepared and hope to have a little run of them if I can manage it and don't get caught.

Farm Girl Jam Label, Blackberry, and Portrait of Gir

Top painting is the last of the Farm Girl Jam Labels, Blackberry Jam.
Below is the amazing painting of a current student.  This noble Chihuahua is named Gir.
As in GRRRRR. So fine!

Jam Jar Label, Pomegranate

Pomegranate Jam Jar Label.  Do know know why the printer has redirected this copy and centered everything, Hal has obviously taken over.

Farm Girl Jam Label Olallieberries

Farm Girl Jam:  Olallieberries!  I'm not certain how this differs in taste from the boysenberry and the blackberry as I didn't get a jar of this one in my care package from the Farm Girl.  They are longer and more narrow though. I hope I get a jar of this to try.

Farm Girl Jam Label

Farm Girl Jam label, boysenberries.

Farm Girl Jam Label, Pomegranate Jalapeño

Another Farm Girl jam label, Pomegranate Jalapeño.