# 51: Four Peanuts

6" x 6" oil on canvas 

I am finally feeling better and got a painting done yesterday. It felt good to get back on the saddle again and painting for peanuts.

# 50: Girl in White

8" x 10"

I have been a little under the weather lately and was not feeling very well when I painted this yesterday. It shows Still, I decided that I needed to post something, since I did not post anything yesterday.

# 49: Ten-Hut!

 

6" x 6" oil on canvas

This was a fun painting to do. Once again I enjoyed using the cobalt but painting porcelain is very difficult. I need to squint more as I paint. The painting ended up having more drama then I intended. It looks like the Goose is trying to encourage the pear to come to attention. I started it by trying to reduce my the brushstrokes. here it is after about 50.

 And here is my fan club.

# 48: Golden Pair

6" x 6" oil on canvas

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I spoiled myself  by adding some cobalt blue my palette but these pears asking for a nice backdrop. The pears were green but have been slowly ripening and were the perfect color to be painted again. These painting felt mostly un-labored and I managed to keep everything within a 2 hour window of time. I am still working on limiting my brushstrokes in the beginning stages and i think that it helping me focus on the big areas.

# 47: Gesundheit

6" x 6" oil on canvas

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Well I fell off of my limited brushstroke diet. I am focusing on color harmony and it took a couple of attempts to  home in a background color.

# 46: Seduction

6" x 6" oil on canvas

It seems like the sexy pear is seducing the gallant creamer. This one ended at about 55 brushstrokes. It is a little simple, but that might be a good thing for me.

# 45; Crazy Daisies

 

6"x 6" oil on canvas

I am trying something different this week based  on the DPW weekly challenge. The idea is to predict and limit your brushstrokes. You begin by doing a careful drawing/analysis of the of the shapes, predict the number of brushstrokes you will need and then count the stokes as you proceed. This was a trail run. Here are the daisies after 31 brushstrokes and before I went back in to "fix" it. It was kind of nice really and almost finished. 

So I tried again and did this painting to submit to the challenge.

                                                                      SOLD!

This time however...though I was sorely tested..... I did not go back into it. It was so hard to just leave it alone! This is a very good exercise for me and I plan on continuing it through the week. The fact that I won't be able to "finish" anything will bother me a lot but I really need to learn to well enough alone.
So far this month,  I have switched to painting almost exclusively with big brushes (1-1/2" - 2"). I have reduced my palette down to 7-8 colors and now I am trying to reducing my brushstrokes to 50 or less. I seem to spend very little time actually applying the brush to canvas compared to the time I spend with the set up, just looking and looking and mixing the hues.

#44: Purple Pear

6" x 6" oil on canvas

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Yes it is another pear, but this is the best, I think. 

#43: Blue Pear

6" x 6" oil on canvas paper

Another pear painting.  I am trying to keep my colors more separate, but man is hard to get them to work together...especially in half tone areas. I also used a more limited palette this time. I am inspired by another daily painter whose palette mainly consists of alizarin crimson, thalo blue, ultra marine, cad yellow light, cad red med, Titanium white (personally I couldn't get by without cad yellow med). Here is his blog 120 paintings. Beautiful work..I love the sense of light, the saturation  and the way he keeps the color spots separate. I am trying to get there and so I am off to paint another pear.

#42: Pink Pear

6" x 6" oil on canvas paper

My first painting today was a wipe-out. When a painting is a wipe out it is best to put it down mercifully. And so taking a lead from another daily painter, I decided to go back to basics and paint a pear. Pears are just good to paint. Now I decided I needed some cheering up as well and so went for some color contrast. Sure it is bit "happy" and out of season again and I struggled a bit with turning the form. The important thing is that I got over my funk and i will not have paint nightmares tonight.

41: " Yearning"

6" x 6" oil on canvas paper

I have wanted to paint this terracotta bunny for awhile. It was a challenge for me.  I was inspired by another daily painter and I wanted to pant something high key and colorful, unfortunately it looks like it was painted out of season.

# 40: "Desire"

6' x 6" oil on canvas

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The boundaries of the glass jar are keeping some of the apples safe from ponies voracious desire

I wish I had more time with this one...I was just working things out. But I do need to remember that the purpose is not complete finished work, but to practice everyday. I am having trouble painting at night under artificial light. The painting never look the same in the day light. I bought a day light bulb, but that didn't do the trick. Suggestions?

I painted the gray scale version for the weekly challenge on the Daily paintwork Website. it is always a good exercise to do gray scale studies and I need to do more of them. I think that my study needs some simplification

6"x 6" oil on canvas paper

#39: "Orange Reflection"

 8" x 6" oil on canvas paper

# 38: "Model with Skull"

10" x  8" oil on canvas paper

The skull ended up being the best part in the painting...it is funny that when I am less stressed about the painting it turns out better. I was a little aggravated with the head and so gave it another go during the last 30 minutes of the session.

6" x 6" oil on canvas paper

# 37: "Lost Marble"

6" x 6" oil on canvas paper

I am continuing to work with the larger brushes, though I have to admit that needed to go done to #8 for some of the marble (did you find it?) and then it took me a while to put is aside and pick up the #12 again. This composition started as actually an 8x6 but is looked better with 2" trimmed off. nothing much more to add, except that as I was painting this I thought, " greens are hard", but then I remembered that the day before that I was complaining that browns where hard and before that, white was hard...so I will just have to assume that color is and always will be a challenge. But then if they weren't, what would be the point?

# 36: "Circling"

6"x 6" oil on canvas paper

SOLD!

I am still experimenting with the larger brush, but I need a brush that is less bristlely and that will allow me to lay down the paint smoothly. I found another artist that I really like and though he not painting anymore due to the fact he is now attending medical school, his work is very inspirational. His name is Aaron Lifferth and here is his blog http://aaronlifferth.blogspot.com/. He uses water color brushes and gets a beautiful smooth finish, so I think that I will give it a shot.

About the painting. I set up the oranges on a brown fabric and I knew that it would be trouble. How to make brown interesting? At the end I started to figure it out. you need to attack form both ends, warm and cool and avoid an actual brown...... but then I ran out of time. I do like the way the oranges turned out, though the texture of the brush work is a bit much. I smoothed out the background with a softer brush, but not the oranges. It probably should have been the other way around.

# 35: " Fallen Plum"

6" x 6" oil on canvas paper

When I get advise, I try to apply it. One piece of advice I got this week was that I should try to crop in more in order to improve my compositions. Another piece of advise was to use a 4" house painting brush with a 6" canvas.....(well the person who gave me that advise is a little off his rocker) and I didn't have a 4" brush on me last night. I did have an old 2" house brush, which I used messily, but what I found in brush collection was a 1-1/2" bright. I can't remember where I got this and I don't remember ever using it before. Here it is with the painting.

I have to admit that I cheated a little in that I used my thumb as well. Well I learned a lot but as you can see see that I still managed to fuss it and I am still planning to try out the 4" brush. By the way plums are plum difficult to paint because there is so little contrast. Then again, I am probably making it too difficult. keep the critiques and advise coming!

# 33: "Banana Intrigue"

6" x 6" oil on canvas paper

The idea what to make a banana appear mysterious for the IF word this week. However things got a little out of hand and I afraid that my bananas have entered the erotic world of the french boudoir.

# 32: "Greek Snack"

 

6" x 6" oil on canvas paper

# 31: "Party Time"

6" x 8" oil on canvas paper

I decided to celebrate meeting my 30 day goal. The most enjoyable thing about doing a painting a day is asking myself the same question everyday."What will I paint today?".

# 30: "San Capistrano Mission"

 

8" x 10" oil on panel

It was  lovely day on Thursday when I went on a paint out to the San Capistrano mission. Except for the parking ticket everything was perfect. Painting out is invigorating, but I do have trouble dealing with the light and just "seeing" the painting. That window on the right needs to get knocked down and lighting of the bushes is a bit confused. other then that, I am happy with it. I did a gray scale study first and as you can see, the values on the bushes makes more sense.

5" x 7" oil on canvas paper

By the way, I have met my 30 paintings in 30 days goal! Today I celebrate.

# 29: "Balanced?"

6" x 6" oil on canvas paper