Just Cream, Please

Click here to bid!

#024

Actually, I drink my coffee black.  I just liked the way this chrome cream pitcher looked. :)

This painting was actually frustrating for me, and I'm still not happy with certain sections of it. I had trouble getting the "turquoise" color that I wanted. Then, I muddied it up; then, I scraped some paint off; then, I over-worked it, and finally, I repeated the steps above. I've been trying to get my daily paintings finished in 1-1 1/2 hours.  This one took almost 4!  (Including the time pacing around, looking at it across the room with one eye closed, texting with my niece, and just generally keeping distracted from the corner I was painting myself into!)

For my next trick, I'm going to do some quick 10 minute paintings of something easy!  :)

P.S. You can see from below that I didn't have the drawing right before I started painting! Lesson learned: Don't get too excited to jump into painting, and ignore your drawing. Bad drawing = bad painting!

^ The reference shot through my view finder. So far, so good.

< The bad sketch, I should've stayed at this step.

>The uncorrected drawing stayed true as I began the painting.

Three-Pear Study I

Click here to bid!

#009

Pears are so great to paint.  I guess that's why they show up in so much art work.  The shape is almost figurative in nature with its curves and chiseled angles.  Then there's the formative shadows and reflections, the implied movement.... the gesture and posture.  

This painting was done from life.  Below is a picture of my still life set-up through my view finder.  The next picture is what I sketched in with a wash of Burnt Umber.  I also laid in a little white to get a feel for the composition.  I had intended to paint all the warm colors I saw in the pears, but ended up liking the cool colors that were coming through from the light blue hues of the canvas, so I stuck with those.