Fruit in Glass Bowl

I wanted to explore some ideas in this one: reducing detail, losing edges, and using strong color with gray. It's funny that it takes so much gumption to give up the first two - it actually feels hazardous, like there will be chaos if you allow it.

Moroccan Bowl with Fruit

I got new glasses.

Radishes on Striped Dishcloth

I made an attempt to reign in the whorish color here, truly I did.

Pear on Plaid

I'm trying to work out how the plaid can be painted without anal retentativeness and still be plaid - wanton plaid, maybe.

Cup of Strawberries

Easter material.

Tomatoes on Blue Dishtowel

I worked on a larger painting today, not post worthy, but I am learning a lot. More complicated compositions, more space (yikes!), more stuff I don't know and can't control.

The paint goes fast, too - I am down to about a tablespoon of ultramarine and of course all I can think of to paint is blue stuff.

Wildflowers

I made a last attempt to find some bluebonnets today and rode my bike out to some fields near my house. Nothing. These are the wildflowers I gathered from the snake filled ditches.

Sheba

Come back, Little Sheba.

Bluebonnets on Black

I didn't think I had anything postable today but as I was cleaning up I found a little painting I had done of these sort of desiccated bluebonnets - no rain this year. Also, because the painting is dry, I could scan it, and behold! no glare on the black! I don't know that I can discipline myself to paint a 4-5 days ahead though, it seems too big a mountain.

Dogs Playing

Just dogs playing, a little break.

Girl in Plaid

Well, I have to do something that is purely fun tomorrow, because every last brain cell I have is fried. Last weekend I bought a postcard of a head Velasquez had done of the Infanta Princess Something, I can't remember her name. She has elaborate hair, but the whole thing is very simple, even the form of the hair is simple, with an indication of pearls and curls within it. And I approached this determined to simplify (except for the plaid) and yet.....sometimes it just exceeds my grasp. I take my hat off to him, again.

Brianna, study

This is my neighbor's grandchild. I have a shot of her in a - yes - plaid dress. I thought I'd better do some exploratory stuff before I tackle the big one.

Man and Dog with Plaid

No kidding, this plaid just sort of came to me unbidden, so I had to go with it. I liked the outward and opposite gaze of these two beings, and the sense of comfort between them. But oh, the plaid was the fun part!

Jean on Plaid

Nothing to be said here.

More Screwdrivers

I wanted to do this subject again and paint more vigorously and less cautiously, which I did do, but it doesn't show here - could it be the camera and not my whining? I'm trying to find a way to keep the whole surface going without stopping to correct. To correct with the next application of the paint on the form or surface next to the mistake. To make friends with mistake making and have a lot of ways to re-state that are not cramped or fearful.

Baby Screwdrivers

This is my entry for the April challenge, Tools, at Some Texas Artists Like to Paint. To see what everyone else is doing, click here.

Portrait of a Cabbage

Thank you, Plaid Supporters. I went looking for some new ones, but plaid is not a summer thing apparently - fall is for plaid. I DID find though a few interesting prints and also this movie star of a cabbage at a small community market. The pink and blue in the cloth were sort of florescent colors, delicate but pop-strong at the same time. To keep it from being too dotty, which is ok too, but I took a broad piece of cardboard and dragged it across some parts of the painting to obliterate some edges. I like this tool and process -- it kind of binds everything together.

Fish on Plaid

This plaid thing is starting to feel Steve Martin-ish. Didn't he wear those plaid pants in "The Jerk"? In any case, it's been fun. I tried to keep the color very quiet here and I guess fish are the best subject for greys, so many variations. I am off for a few days to celebrate a birthday with a sister and maybe break the plaid cycle.

Dogs on Plaid

Yes, dogs on plaid. I took this photo 10 times, could not improve the color or reduce the glare.

Fruit on Plaid

This plaid is a lot to grapple with. It is silk taffeta, so it has sheen and shadow right next to each other that are different colors altogether which is maddening. Then it has LOTS of up and down stripes that are regular. I think plaid is such a strong element that it has to be softened somehow otherwise it shouts over the rest of the painting rather than being integral to it. I tried various methods of softening them, one over the other, therefore, lots of paint. I learned a lot though, and am getting more comfortable with it. When you can get plaid to work ---bashment!

Peaches on Plaid

Practicing my plaid.

Onions on Blue Napkin

I had big plans to do lots of painting stuff today, but there was house stuff and grocery stuff and yard stuff all needing attention, so I only did two quiet onions.

Pink Still Life

First: This is seriously pink in real life, but what can you do with that whole photo process, so frustrating. I tried to keep it all sort of dark and close valued, to crowd the forms and tie them to the bottom edge, leaving a big slab of space at the top for all that ----well, pink. Initially, I split that area in two and planned to use another red, more orange, in the top space, but it was interesting what that did to the composition - it made it unreadable as a whole image, so I had to consolidate and unify with the single pink. The plaid cloth I lifted straight from Catherine Kehoe's painting of a dishtowel, which is exquisite, and maybe the standard for all painted plaids in the entire galaxy. Click here. I worked the dishtowel a couple of times before this version above, putting in every check and line. Awful. Then I painted some checks and lines and shifted the values on every square. Finally, I painted the values of the cloth, then threw caution to the winds and jabbed in some lines. That worked best. I learned a lot on this painting.

Blue Green Still Life

This was one of those things - you get the idea sort of wholly formed in your head and you almost break your neck to get it down. I have been thinking more about the full/empty idea, about crowding or stacking and contrasting that with empty space. Also, that format can be a vehicle for strong color relationships, which if they are successful, could carry the painting alone. Then there is the question of the ratio of light to dark (Peggi Kroll Roberts!) who says she tries to keep it 1/3: 2/3 dark or light - but what if it were all dark? Or all light? Or all saturated, etc. Justin Clayton did a winter landscape recently that was so uniformly dark as to not be there except for the pale moon. Very melancholy, I loved it. Very Albert Pinkham Ryder. In this one, anyway, I tried to crowd and isolate and also to let the light source be the green cloth. oooo I am in love with permanent green light.

Little Begonia

More of my grey/yellow/brown paper behind this plant, experimenting with brighter clearer color next to lesser color, etc.

Box of Radishes on Aluminum Foil

This is my entry in Angela Elledge's Moleskine journal - part of the Moleskine Roundup. We send around a journal for each member to paint in. To see some of the entries, click here.

For this last gasp of radishes, I used permanent green light and viridian and I like these greens of all the ones I have tried so far. They were sharp but not too difficult to knock down to gray - that pthalo blue is a bear in mixing green, it is so strong.

Wide Still Life

I feel like this is a bit of a breakthrough painting, even though there some questionable parts... It was great to play with the composition and to bend it to my will so to speak. I wanted to have a lot of space and a single unity of forms, and have it seem natural. And also, I wanted to use the pink as weight. Another thing I discovered, I am holding my brushes up close to the ferrule! I saw a great PBS documentary on the Taos painters, Victor Higgins and all those guys, and they were painting by holding their brushes almost at the ends. I knew this of course, but I didn't realize I had such a choke hold on my brushes. So today I backed way down the handle. It's a good thing I think, because you have to put the paint down differently, more of a smack and less distinct edge. Oh yes, and this painting is gigantic - 15 inches wide!

Still life with Kiwi

Still on the full/empty theme: if "all things are understood by means of comparison", then can the painting be made to work with crowded forms and empty space? Could the crowding even go in the middle - dead center - with the space surrounding? Lots of ways to go with this one.

Still Life with Macho Chayote

Another grocery store adventure: there are two kinds of chayote squash apparently, the smooth green one and then the other one, just the same except for the millions of yellowish spines that grow out of the skin, making a sort of halo around it so it looks velvety from 10 feet away. And it is called, no kidding, macho chayote.

Radish Finale

This is the 1812 Overture of Radishes, with all canons blazing.