Three Eggplants Pewter Bowl SOLD

These small eggplants came from my favorite grocery store, Uwajimaya's.  (You can buy almost any type of produce there). These eggplants are only 3 inches long but have a beautiful color.   They are so dark that they go well with the shiny mirror-like quality of the pewter bowl.

Green Apples Glass Jar on Purple

This is my entry for the current Daily Paintworks Challenge,  The challenge was to paint one color per stroke.  Mix a color, put down a stroke, mix another color, put down the next stroke.  I was looking for larger and larger brushes so I could put down a larger area with one stroke.  And in a few places I fudged and actually put down more than one stroke with the same load of color.  The effect is juicier and thicker than I usually paint.  It was fun.

Creek View SOLD

This painting was inspired by a trip to the Oregon Coast.  There were lots of hills along the coast and hundreds of creeks fed from those hills and crossed the highway towards the ocean. Because I enjoy focusing on the distance, I have to work out how to represent the near view and the far view all in the same painting.  Even though, in reality, the near greens and the far greens were not that different, I pushed the far view back by making those colors lighter, bluer and less contrasty.

Red Onion on Green SOLD

My One Year Blogging Anniversary.  

February 21 marks the one year anniversary of this blog.  I have posted 127 paintings (this makes 128), most of them created during this year.  I think that the work of frequent painting has made me improve.  I can see mistakes more quickly and have a clearer vision of what will make a good painting.  I'm still working on simplification, lost edges, and broad interesting brush strokes (as opposed to multiple tight fussy brush strokes).

This is an example of an extremely simple composition, but with a nice dynamic balance.  The onion is slightly off center, and the flag of the stem gives it a nice diagonal push.  I've lost an edge in the shadow of onion and I've softened the edge in the foreground where the still life material drops over the edge of the table.   I enjoy the simplicity of the complementary red/green color scheme.  There is a bit of reflected light in the cast shadow, on the underside of the onion and in the stem.  And I like how the onion has light-struck warm areas and shadowed cool areas; the onion is not just red--it moves from red orange to red purple, echoing the gradation of the shadowed background which goes from cool dark green to warmer lighter green.


Thanks to all the people who look at my blog.. I appreciate your comments and opinions.  

Grapefruit Glass Bowl on Green SOLD

The grapefruit were the excuse to try painting the glass bowl.  But they do make a nice color contrast to the green.  I like how the light bent around the bowl to make the grapefruit fade out on the lower right.  And that cast shadow crossing the grapefruit that was created by the rim of the bowl.

Three Persimmons on White

This is the last of the persimmon paintings - they finally gave up the ghost.  This is  my favorite; I especially like the simple strokes of the leaf of the shadowed persimmon.  And I like the contrast between the warm light-struck foreground and the cool shadows.  I am always amazed at how long it takes to make something "simple," and how deliberate your strokes have to be to be "loose"

Three Persimmons on Orange

The limited palette emphasizes the color of the persimmons   I liked the chunky leaves -very sculptural.  They were dark and very neutral in color and even the light areas were not very light.  It was fun trying to paint them without being too tight.

Bandon Lighthouse-Bold Brush Painting Entry SOLD

This is my February entry in the online bold brush painting competition.  Please go to http://canvoo.com/boldbrush/painting/16858 TO VOTE FOR MY PAINTING.
And thank you to those of you who look at my entries.

Three Persimmons on Gray

These persimmons have been sitting on the counter for weeks, waiting to ripen.  All of a sudden they were past ripe and turning to mush, so it was time to paint or throw them out.  I really like the thick sculptural leaf and chunky stem at the top of each fruit.   I think the persimmon in shadow makes a nice contrast to the light struck fruit.