Clematis

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I thought it was time to add a few flowers to my blog, since I do more of them and landscapes than I do the still lifes. I really love the look of close up flowers especially when they have a lot of contrast.  I painted this for my watercolor class , but they did not get to it as a subject to paint, as we were too busy painting apple blossoms. I will post one of those from class as well. The only way to really get the luminous darks is to glaze the color on in layers,  that way you can see various tones coming through each other like stained glass.

It's fun to paint that way, but it takes a lot of time,  and you have to be patient and wait for each layer to dry sufficiently first. 

Pottery and Wood

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This  lovely pottery jar was brought in by one of my students for a class set up. It had great texture and dimension in the glaze.  I just rediscovered this painting, and thought it went well with the recent group of still lifes I have put up on Daily Paintworks. So, rather than keep it tucked away here it is to enjoy.  It was painted on gessoed panel hardboard, and the slippery surface allowed a lot of texture to show in the strokes. It is a harder surface to paint on if you are not used to it, I think. but it has a nice feel once you get used to it..

Tea Time

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 I love the color and the design of this little cast iron tea pot, and decided it would make a nice composition with some of the other Chinese tea assortment of items I have.
The tea canister is full of a delicious green tea, and I even had some extra chop sticks that repeated the color of the apple nicely. I tried to keep the painting fairly loose and not go back in to over-do any area.
I did spend more time on the apple, as it was a very complicated macintosh with lots of mottling to the skin.
I think it must be tea time now that I am done with it.

Briefly Balanced

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This painting challenge was painting the rose, which was placed in a precarious balance position on the jar. The flower kept unfurling its petals more as the painting was going, despite this being a quick study. As light moves constantly while pleine air painting, so do flower petals in still life's sometimes move as they decide to change directions and open and close. Leaves move at their own whim when gravity takes hold, especailly on flowers out of water. One has to capture the essence of the scene and go from there, if the objects are not completely "still". Or resort to some tape sometimes. :)

Peeled and Painted

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Well, I have been avoiding making a blog for years now, but thanks to friend and fellow artist Qiang Huang I am biting the bullet and catching up with  this long overdue arena to post into.  Thank you Qiang for all your help and inspiration.
Here is a painting I did  this past weekend. I am primarily a landscape painter, ( so I say ) but it seems lately, especially with more classes than time to paint plein air, I have been doing a lot of still lifes. I find them a challenge to find a combination of objects that seem new , or not overdone.
sometimes we just have to use what we have at hand, but I think I am going to search out more interesting subject matter, and welcome suggestions on some new ideas for subject matter. For now, the object was the focus of painterly fruit, especially to capture the orange peel. I like the way the broken color pieces add vibrancy to the peel. From a little distance it all pulls together, but up close,  you can see the bits and pieces rather than having blended transitions. I want to work up more of the fruits in various modes of "undress".

shark food


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