A New Series?

I have the coolest idea for a series. It came to me this morning as I was reviewing my work from yesterday. I set up a still-life consisting of toast, coffee and a set of salt and pepper shakers in the studio and proceeded to paint. This was not fun or even very easy to paint because it was a rainy day and the light was gray to begin with. The light changed to blue as darkness approached and I had to pay very close attention to my shadow colors and where they were located. Around 5:00 pm I had to stop and make something for dinner and by the time we ate and I returned to the painting it was almost dark. All my natural light was gone. So I finished the painting knowing I might have to make radical changes the next day. I brought the painting out into the kitchen this morning and wow! It still looks good; in fact it looks great. I paint in a semi-dark room, because it suits my style pretty well. Oh... and because there are no overhead lights in there. Maybe some day I will be able to afford a studio with skylights but that day is not here yet. When I think about that I just recall the old masters who managed to turn out masterpieces by candlelight or lamplight. Painting in low light helps me to keep my lights lighter. I have noticed when I paint in a room with overhead lights that my paintings tend to be too dark when you view them in a room with normal light. But I am digressing. My idea is to paint a series of paintings in a diner with different food. I will use the same red checkered fabric for the tablecloth and change the food and utensils. This one will be called Diner Series No. 1: Low maintenance. Then I will do a painting of the person who would eat this breakfast. They will be a matched set-- although I won't sell them like that. For display purposes this would be great. The woman who eats this breakfast would be someone thin but not worried about her weight. OK.. like me.. but I am not going to paint myself. I want these diners to be almost caricatures of themselves. A huge plate of bacon and eggs would have a hefty diner- maybe a trucker. AND I just had another idea- they could be painted with the same palette of colors as their food. It would be almost like a puzzle for the viewer to try to match them up if they didn't know the titles. So if I do about seven at one a day it would take me 2 or 3 weeks to finish. I can't count on getting one a day done but I'll try. I am excited about this idea! I don't know whether to do all the food first or do the food then the person. Here is a picture of the first one. The size is 9 x 12. This is not a wonderful picture because I took it in the dark last night under poor lighting conditions. I like to take my pictures outside on a sunny day in the shade. But the sun did not shine here in Northwest Ohio yesterday. Doesn't look as if it will shine today either.

I just realized that I would have to cook the food and leave it sit there until the painting is finished. Or I could go to a diner and order it to go. Mmmm. What a temptation that will be for a certain untrained kitten if I leave the room for a moment.

This picture is a bit crooked too. I am the only one up and I'm using my notebook, which does not have any image editiong software on it to straighten my bad photography.