# 267: Cutie Spread

6" x 6" oil on canvas

Well this did not work out very well. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

# 266: Strawberries with Tea

6" x 6" oil on canvas

I got back to painting more of the traditional still life with objects today. Nothing much to say about this except that ellipses are a pain to paint and that capturing the surface strawberries in paint is difficult without going into detail. Strawberries are the only fruit with their seeds on the outside.

# 265: Little Bear

6" x 6" oil on canvas

No time to paint today, so instead, I did a quick re-work of an older painting. This little bear needed a some spicing up and so a bumped up the background blue and made other small changes as well.

# 264: Pile Up

6" x 6" oil on canvas

Strawberries in December are nice treat and another reason I love living in SoCal. It was a beautiful crisp sunny day today but I felt like I was sleep walking through this painting and might to adjust some things tomorrow. 

Tomorrw is here and I made some adjustments...but some paintings are just not meant to be saved .

# 263: Pepper Riot

6" x 6" oil on canvas

The feisty peppers were fun. The perspective is just a bit off and therefore bugs me...grrrr Patterned backgrounds are a good challenge and I need to work on the balance...the background should lay back a bit more.

# 262: Elegant Pears

6" x 6" oil on canvas

# 261: Orange Dots

6" x 6" oil on canvas

This was a fun idea, but I quickly became obsessed with getting the perspective of the dots right and so it got a bit tight. It would give it another go, but I ate all of the tomatoes.

# 260: Onion Wheels

6" x 6" oil on canvas

# 259: Pastoral Wedges

6" x 6" oil on canvas

I love painting apple wedges and should do it more often. The only problem is that they tend to brown (even though I coat them with lemon juice) and I tend to paint what I see and not what I know or want to see and so these little guys got  toned at the end.

# 258: Contented Pears

6" x 6" oil on canvas

I forgot to post yesterday and so there will be two posts today. Still pushing the color...too much?

# 257: Regal Pepper

6" x 6" oil on canvas

I am continuing my compositional studies of simple fruit and veggie arrangements. The goal is to have a bunch these to hang together on a gallery wall. Doing a series is a great way to focus on things beyond the subject matter...especially when the subject matter is so common.

# 256: Tomato Glow

6" x 6" oil on canvas

I have gotten a lot of mileage out these orange tomatoes.

# 255: Pepper Pursuit

6" x 6" oil on canvas

This one turned out a bit "pinker" than I intended. I like muted festiness though. These simple paintings are a joy to paint, but they do not tend sell well on the DPW website. I am hoping that they sell better when shown together on a gallery wall. If they do not, I will learn something. but the best lesson is that I really enjoy painting these simple grouping. I get a kick out of how one can animate and create a bit a drama with a few fruits and vegetables.

# 254: Tomato Transpostion

6" x 6" oil on canvas

I am starting on a series of arrangements of fruits and vegetables on a simple background, focusing on color and composition.  I have done similar paintings in the past and aim to do a bunch more for a gallery presentation. They are a fun and refreshing activity to engage in during the darkest time of the year and tend to be easy to accomplish during precious daylight hours.

# 253: Threes

6" x 6" oil on canvas

I got some color and composition inspiration from one of Carol Marines paintings for this. I have a tendency to get tight and so it was a challenge to stop before I tired to "fix" everything. however...now that I see it on the screen I can see  a lot that needs fixing. It is always a balancing act.

* 252: Cornered

6" x 6" oil on canvas

Oops. I forgot to post yesterday

# 251: Tomato Tango

6" x 6" oil on canvas

Painting bowls and ellipses is not an easy task and sometimes, it is only after see it on the screen that I see my mistakes with clarity. I am not sure about the composition, but something pleases me about it and I ma pretty happy with the color as well.

#250: Tangerine Striptease

6" x 6" oil on canvas

I really enjoyed working with the color palette of green, orange and purple and I am happy that some of the blue under painting survived. It started to get a little overworked at the end. I have hope that the more I paint, the more I will know when to stop and when I am not painting but merely pushing paint around. Painting is a process and needs consistent practice to develop a fresh and spontaneous painting style (my goal). Now that I have been spending mer time in front of the easel, I am feeling more confidant and I believe that it is showing.

# 249:Rodeo Pear

6" x 6" oil on canvas

# 248: Ready for Sauce

6" x 6" oil on canvas

# 247: Somethings Blue

8" x 5"

I haven't decided how I feel about this piece yet. Ask me next week. For now the aggravation that I went through to get it to this point is still too fresh and I can only see the things that I just couldn't quite get down in paint. The painting I ended up is far away from the one I had planned in my head. That could be part problem. I had so many ideas about what the painting should be, that it wasn't until I was entirely over it and near the point of wiping it all out, that i really started to experiment. The objective was to work on blue again....this adding more neutrals as contrast. I seem to have difficulties managing grays. Those gray areas allow for a lot of interpretation.

# 246: Blue Bird

6" x 6" oil on canvas

# 245: Pig With a Purpose

9" x 6" oil on canvas

Well this was a bit of a mess. The simplicity of the surface should have been easy, but when painting porcelain, there are a lot of choices that need to be made that can get one a bit bogged down,,,which I did. it is especially difficult to decide on warm vs cool, and I tend to avoid, for some reason a neutral gray. The frontal view was also a challenge..no tricks of shape distortion and perspective to sell the form. I did enjoy the subject will try again.

# 244: Something to Crow About

6" x 6" oil on canvas

I enjoyed painting this little duo. I seem to be stuck on an avian theme lately , but never fear, tomorrow it is back to miss pig. I am happy with the way the little blue bird turned out...the Rooster? well, not as much to crow about there.