Seasonal Stuff

This is a painting of tomatoes and peppers given to me by my neighbor. I kept the piece very warm and used a lot of cadmium red to achieve this. Even the background is quite warm, but it's still red, which really keeps the focus on the peppers, because they are a complimentary green.

More Fresh Produce!

The last vegetable stand I stopped at was a self-serve place. I had the crazy dog with me so he watched unhappily as I looked everything over and purchased peaches, tomatoes, an eggplant, some cucumbers and a yellow squash. Now that I've painted this stuff I will have to figure out what to make with it.

I have the All Recipes app on my phone and that's a blessing. Put in the ingredients/items you want to use and search for a dish that contains them. It doesn't get much easier. All my cookbooks have become a bit obsolete these past few years.

This is the second eggplant I have painted and I'm not sure if I've ever painted a yellow squash or cucumbers. Like anything else they are shapes forms that are defined by the light and shadow. The really cool thing about this setup was the bright red tomato reflecting off the old medicine bottle; almost looks like there is a fire in the bottle. The shiny texture of the eggplant was especially fun to paint too.

Harvest Time 11" x 14" oil on canvas

Summer Vegetables

Looking at the date of my last entry, I can see that it has been almost two weeks since I posted anything to the blog. A pretty long time to go without painting... for me. Well, I have been painting, just not posting. Weddings, reunions and other stuff just gets in the way. Life, I suppose. My daughter is back in school now and my house guests have returned to Texas so it's time to catch up.

Last night I painted some produce that was gifted to me by my mother when I stopped at her house earlier in the week. I used a blue film over my spotlight as an experiment to simulate north light. I'm not sure it worked but it did make my carrots look awfully pale. So pale that I touched them up with some orange this morning when I took another look at it.

The reflective copper kettle is one of my favorite props and I'm getting pretty good at painting it. The very first time i painted it I spent over two hours on the kettle itself. This time I spent about two hours on the entire painting and called it done.

I started with a blue underpainting because I thought it would give the warm tomatoes and carrots a little kick. My favorite part of the painting is the onion because I spent two minutes on it and I was happy with it.

Summer Vegetables 11" x 14"

Oil on canvas