Egg on Blue Plate

Hope every one of you has a nice and peaceful weekend.

Green Color Charts

I was thinking of titling this post Compulsion but I don't want to be any harder on myself than how I felt after working on these charts. I was inspired by Richard Schmid's charts in his book Alla Prima and I made my green charts in anticipation of painting outdoors. The first chart is of greens right out of the tube and lightened with titanium white. Many of them I forgot I owned and were in a box in my basement. The second chart is the interesting one where I mixed different blues with yellows and toned them down with different reds. The part with the reds is not complete and if it was I would have had to make 180 squares! I did have some Aha moments though. I discovered I really like naples yellow with all the blues, yellow ochre and blues make nice dark greens, and cad yellow deep and blues have an orange cast. From the top chart chrome green deep is a nice cool blue green.
After all this my favorite mixtures of greens haven't changed much but I see I have more options when choosing colors.

Red Apple on Stacked Plates

I sometimes think painting is an intellectual exercise. I decided on this composition for the opportunity to paint stacked plates, objects I haven't tried before. This is one way I choose my still lifes, the other way is based on color combinations. These plates required a steady hand and in the end were not as difficult as I imagined.

Double Challenge

I painted this green cabbage for The Monochromatic Challenge on DPW. That was before I read the instructions closely that stated to paint in shades of black and white. This also fits into this week's challenge of The What's In Your Fridge. I think it fits both but I'll go with the first since that was my intention.  This is a monochromatic painting in green and it was a good skill builder.

Three Radishes

I haven't painted in a week and I thought it would be a struggle but to my delight I completed this painting by mid-afternoon.  I painted the radish tops simply and that freed me to push the colors in the shadows. I'm looking forward to having the time to paint every day again.

Prickly Pears and Nectarine

I've never eaten or painted a prickly pear and both were an unusual experience. There's not a lot of flesh to eat around the seeds and they're not very sweet. I don't think they're meant to be eaten like other fruit. In terms of color, they are intense and my painting fell short in terms of their deep red violet flesh color. My goal was a colorful painting (a nod to Linda Hunt) and I'm satisfied with the result.

Broccoli

I'm pleased to showcase this still life I acquired from my friend Trudi Smith. She is an accomplished artist in still lifes, florals and portraiture. What I really like about this painting is that it has an edge and that makes it interesting.  You can view more of her beautiful work at http://fineartamerica.com/profiles/trudi-smith.html

The Usual Suspects

This painting is finally completed and I'm happy with it. I might have said that toys are a strange thing to paint in an earlier post. I found the process of finding them and painting them so much fun. They filled a need at the time (the loss of my dog) but not anymore. I'll either put them away or donate them and hope they make someone else happy.