Monday, December 31, 2012

# 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.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

# 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.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

# 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.

Friday, December 28, 2012

# 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 .


Thursday, December 27, 2012

# 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.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Sunday, December 23, 2012

# 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.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

# 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.

Friday, December 21, 2012

# 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?

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

# 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.

Monday, December 17, 2012

# 256: Tomato Glow

6" x 6" oil on canvas

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

Sunday, December 16, 2012

# 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.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

# 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.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

# 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

Monday, December 10, 2012

# 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.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

#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.

Friday, December 7, 2012

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

# 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.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Monday, December 3, 2012

# 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.


Saturday, December 1, 2012

# 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.