Croissant and Napkin

This is sort of lightly done, which is a good thing. What I really mean is, it has taken a lot of slogging for this to look like it fell off the brush.

California Lemons in Glass Bowl

More. Really tried to keep those edges soft as I worked them, rather than cleaning them up afterward, which produces a sort of dreadful .... wiping mark, yech.

Figs on Green Plate

One more run for the figs. I am still using a pretty large round brush and mostly it feels right. It does not leave a chop in the paint like the bright -- but I do like the chop. I have to think about it. I'm not sure I want to see too much evidence of the brush, but neither do I want it smooth. More testing necessary.

Barbecued Vienna Sausages

Oh the poetry of Vienna Sausages. In Alabama where I grew up it was pronounced Vi - ayna, yes, hard to believe this, but true. The barbecue ones cost 10 cents more a can, but as they are drenched in thick red sauce, they are more fun to paint.

Little Apples

This time I went to little leftover dark apples and moved the easel farther away from the light box, so there would be more space around the forms. I tried to concentrate on what else was there: there were these electric green shadows under the apples which I didn't quite get, and also the luminous green of the cloth. The apples actually were the least compelling part of the set up. So it was interesting getting the darks down for them, sort of like exploring. One thing I have really learned on this exercise is that there are patches of grayed color on the edges of forms - I can see them now on everything. They are almost invisible, very delicate. I like this painting the best of the apples so far.

Three Apples

This is a little warm up I did this morning to get ready for the real stuff, and then the real stuff was no good, so now this one is the default real stuff - complete with raindrops because it is raining here and the photographing light is also terrible. Also, a word about apples: troublesome. Because the values change and the color changes and the temperature changes all in the same two inches, I am always a little shaken at the prospect of simplifying and getting the info down. I decided after watching my workshop artists pound through the exercises I set them and radically improve that I must do the same and just stick at it. We'll see how many it takes before I get it. The workshop and the people were fun and as usual, I learned a lot.

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.

Tomatoes, Knife

6" square, oil on canvas panel

Raining here today and gray, so the color doesn't photograph well. But it's good enough for now.

I wanted to do the tomatoes before they lose that green, also to work with shadowed yellow. In Carol Marine's workshop (fabulous!) I came up against the world of grays that make up almost everything. I hadn't thought of it in that way before, that color is shifting constantly within the gray range and only rarely is there any pure color. And yellow, surely the most transparent, is full of all sorts of reflected things in the shadows.

Pears, Pillowcase

8x6" oil on canvas panel

Well...

These are sort of romantic and prettified and I meant them to be more jolting with the blue and acid greens. And more crude. The real issue is probably overworking the paint.