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Slices - An Original 6 x 8 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Slices

 With the rain and cold weather continuing outside today, I thought it best to stay inside and paint. It really wasn't a hard decision; it's much warmer in my studio. Since I still had my little still life set up mostly intact, I decided to do another one in this little series I've been working on. I really never had any intention of doing a series like this, but it's been so much fun, I'm going with it. I noticed today that quite accidentally I had made the first two still lives remarkably close in their backgrounds, so for this painting I thought I'd try to do the same thing. I love the way the three of them look together on my drying rack. I even made up this little image of them framed: 

Today's painting is the watermelon one. It was part of our breakfast this morning and I couldn't resist it. I liked that the pieces were a little tattered. This is thanks to my daughter, who's three and who likes to try to help with everything in the kitchen, including cutting up the melon.

Slices © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x8 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Let's Split - An Original 6 x 8 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Let's Split

 Our rain continued today, so it was another day of working in the studio, which suited me just fine. After yesterday's still life, I was itching to do another one anyway. For today's painting, I choose a banana. I find setting up a banana to make an interesting composition a real challenge. It took some time to come up with this one. I started off with a whole banana peeled about a third of the way down and just went from there. You can see I ended up with about a half of banana and parts of it are peeled all the way down. At one point I thought about just eating this one and starting over. I'm really enjoying this little peeled fruit series I have going...both of them! To be honest, I'm not sure how many other fruits I can find that are peeled, but it's suppose to rain again tomorrow, so I might have to look for another one. Anyone have any suggestions?

Let's Split © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x8 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Cutie - An Original 6 x 8 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Cutie

 It seems like I haven't painted a still life in ages. I guess I've enjoyed our Spring weather and trying to get out as much as I can before the dreaded summer heat hits. Today, though, we had rain on and off all day so it seemed like the perfect day to stay in the studio and finally work on some of those still life ideas I've been kicking around in my head for the last few weeks. This is one of those ideas. I like the simplicity of this set up. It forced me to really pay attention to the only object in the painting and try to make it as interesting as possible. It also gave me the challenge of having to peel an orange without breaking the skin, something I've never been very good at, but somehow managed to get it on the first try today! Truth be told, this is my second attempt at this painting today. The first one I had to wipe off about 30 minutes into the painting. I usually pause after my initial start in a painting and make the decision of whether or not to go on or wipe it. It's better to face that decision early in the painting than later on, I think.  Had I spent 2 or 3 hours painting before giving it a critical look, it would have been much harder to wipe it off and start over. 

Cutie © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x8 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Currently available through my eBay auction. Click here to go the auction.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

For The Birds - An Original 12x16 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

For The Birds

 Lately I've been in the mood to try some larger still life paintings. While doing the smaller ones are a lot of fun and a great exercise, sometimes it's nice to stretch a little and do something a bit more involved. And that's exactly what I did. After returning home from doing a small plein air piece in the morning, I spent the rest of the afternoon gathering and arranging this still life. Like many of my still life paintings, the arrangement went through many changes, thoughts and ideas before coming together into something I wanted to paint. Below are a few step-by-step pictures of the painting coming to life. Since I'm running low on the number of images I can upload on my site I've had to combine a few of the steps into one image. Not my favorite way of having to do this, but it keeps me under my limit.

The first image was at the end of the day after I had finished setting up the still life. The only thing I had time for was to sketch in the shapes with a thin wash of (mostly) Transparent Oxide Red. In hindsight, I'm glad that's as far as I got on this first day. That image isn't cropped in, my drawing is. After thinking about it overnight, I decided to redraw the composition so it's a bit more pulled back. I had a few reasons for coming to this decision, but the main one was I wanted a bit more breathing room around the edges of the painting and I wanted to make sure the flowers in the background were visible. Since my wash from the night before was dry, I used a piece of charcoal to redraw everything and then went over that with thin washes of color as seen in the second image. These thin washes helped hide the lines from the previous nights work. Once I was happy with this composition, I was able to start in with a bit thicker paint and more refined colors and values.  I'm starting with the potted plant since it's close to my center of interest and I'm not sure how the flowers are going to do now that I took them from their sunny window. 

Hmm... these combined images get a little small. Sorry about that. I"ll have to figure out something better, but in the meantime, you can see how I moved from the flower-pot to the ceramic bird next to it in the first image. This also gave me the opportunity to finish off the background, since both the bird and plant are defined by it. By the time the second image was taken, I had just about finished the little white vase on a stack of books on the left edge of the painting. From here on out, I alternated from one side of the painting to the other to finish it up. 

For The Birds © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 12x16 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: $385 (unframed)

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

You Crack Me Up - A New Original 6x6 Still Life Oil Painting by George De Chiara

You Crack Me Up

 I'm reminded of something Richard Schmid either said or that I read in his book about setting up a still life. His advice was to take as long as needed to get it just right, even if that meant waiting weeks to find just the right combination of objects and their arrangement. Schmid echoed in my head because earlier today, I set out to set up a still life to paint and two and half hours later and only after going through every piece of fruit we had in the house, I finally found it. I must have arranged, moved, replaced and rearranged thirty different pieces before I uncovered what I was after this morning. Part of the long start was that I didn't have a clear vision of what I wanted to do. I had a vague idea of doing something with a lot of fruit, which is why I emptied the fruit drawer in the fridge. I thought maybe I wanted to do something with reflections, so I grabbed one of our shiny metal mixing bowls. Nope, this one is too big, so I grabbed another. Still too big, so back to the kitchen for another one. A few more adjustments to the still life and...well..maybe the metal bowls weren't such a good idea. There was a brief period where I tried a number of different ceramic plates and dishes, but still nothing seemed to gel. For a while there, it looked like I was going to paint some apples and then it was going to be lemons and limes. You get the idea; this went on for some time. I'm sharing all this today because if you don't paint still lifes you might not realize just what goes into creating one. Sometimes it's hours of trying things out, other times it's days of just working through ideas in your head and on paper. Sometimes it's both! On the plus side, I think I came up with a few ideas to try out during the rest of the week...

You Crack Me Up © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Currently this painting is on the auction block at eBay. Click here to go the auction.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Strawberries and Chocolate - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Strawberries and Chocolate

 In my last blog post, I mentioned going to a church garage sale. This white heart is another one of the items I picked up at it. I think this one cost me a quarter. I liked the contrast between it and the dark background almost immediately. Now, what to put with it to finish off my arrangement? After a bit a digging around the house, I finally settled on using some strawberries, and, what goes better with a strawberry than some chocolate? It surprised me how quickly and easily this still life arrangement came together. Now all I needed to do was paint it.

Here's how the painting came about:

First, here's an image of what I'm looking at while painting. As hard as I tried I just couldn't get a good image of the set up. I can't even see the highlights on the white heart in this image. This is one of the reasons I prefer to paint from life when ever it's possible. 

Here's my really rough block-in of the basic shapes. I toned the canvas with a very thinned mixture of Cadium Red and Terra Rosa. To draw the outlines, I used the same color mixture with less turpentine and a paper towel dipped in turpentine to wipe out some of the light areas. At this point, I'm not really concerned with anything more than making sure everything will fit on the canvas and that I have a composition I'm happy with.

It seems like it's rare to be able to start with the thing that represents the lightest light and darkest dark right off the bat, but I lucked out with this one. Usually, it seems like I need to paint a little more of the painting before establishing these values. I have to admit that kind of luck is nice. 

Just about done now. I have to paint the chocolate hearts still and adjust a few of the edges. Edges are one of those things I really want to work on this year, so if you're a regular reader of this blog your going to hear me talk lot about them. Right now I'm experimenting with soften the edges more than I normally do, trying to give the eye places to rest and giving it a clue that it should move on from the spot it's in. To soften, I'm using a very soft clean brush and I'll just lightly swipe it across the edge.

The finished painting:

Strawberries and Chocolate © 

 Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel.  
Medium: Original Oil Painting 
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid on this painting.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Guard Duty - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Guard Duty

 About a year or so before I actually starting painting still lifes, I started to collect things that caught my eye as something I might want to one day include in my paintings. As any still life painter will tell you, we all love our "stuff" and usually have it stashed all over the studio. You never know when you will need just that perfect thing to complete your still life. You'll find us hunting through the thrift stores for that must have tea-cup or bowl or even the odd knickknack. I've noticed that sometimes I use what I buy very quickly; other times, things that looked good when I bought them seem to lose their appeal once back in the studio and are doomed to sit and collect dust until I notice their charm once again. Well, that little statue in this painting was one of the first things I ever bought for my still life collection. I actually have two of them, along with a few other little figures that I got for $2 at an estate auction almost 3 years ago. Then, there it sat on the shelf in the window collecting dust. I tried it in a few other set ups over the years, but it never really worked out so I always removed it and put it back in its place. Well, I'm happy to report after three years, I finally used this little guy in a painting! Hopefully another three years don't pass before I use it again. 

Here's how this painting came to life:

I took this image at the end of my rough block-in. At this stage there's very little paint on my canvas. I mostly just thinned my paint down with a little turpentine and used a paper towel to wipe out lighter areas, like the vase in the upper left and the statue in the lower right.   The reason I like this approach is because it very quickly gives me idea of the overall colors of my painting and a fairly accurate layout of all the objects in it. From here, I can concentrate on each section of the painting and know that I'm not going to run out of room for everything in the painting.

I let the rough block-in dry for a few minutes. Once the turpentine evaporates, it's more or less dry. Then I start painting. Since I'm fairly confident that the placement of all my objects is correct I can bring the objects I'm painting to an almost complete state. I do go back and make some small adjustments as needed while I finish, but most of these areas are done now. I started with the statue since it's my center of interest and I want to judge the rest of the painting against it. It's also one of the more difficult things to paint, so I figured I'd get it our of the way first. This way if I need to wipe if off and start over I don't risk messing up areas I already painted. Notice how many other objects the statue leads to just to get it painted correctly. Most of the foreground is done in front of it and a large part of the background needed to be done to complete the statue.

In this image, I continued working on the background, almost in a counter-clockwise order. The reason I did this is I like to rest my hand on the canvas when I paint and by leaving the foreground till the very end I'm able to do this without smudging the paint. One thing that doesn't show in these pictures is one important step I did so I could paint that blue ribbon in. First, I drew the edges of it with a little bit of paint so I knew where it went. Then I took my palette knife and scraped off any paint that's under the ribbon. I even used a paper towel to wipe off some of the it. Then, I could paint the ribbon cleanly without having to layer on the paint. I don't have anything against thick paint, but I want to use that effect where I want it and not just to cover up the paint under it.

Guard Duty © 

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 9x12 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Contact me to purchase ($230)

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Fruit Stack - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Fruit Stack

 Back in the studio today. It's been a few days since I've painted indoors. My last few paintings were done outdoors, but I had set this still life up a couple of days ago and really wanted to paint it once and for all. I actually attempted this one right after I set it up, but about half way through that painting, I wasn't happy with what I had. Today I started over with a new approach. Okay, that's not totally true. I tried this new approach the last time I attempted to paint this still life. Like I said, it didn't go well, but with the knowledge of where I went wrong last time I approached my easel once again hoping to get a little further this time.

Here' s a photograph of what I'm looking at while painting. I use to paint from photographs a lot and now I'm amazed every time I look at one like this. There's so much the camera doesn't capture. That's why it's important that I work from life as much as possible. It's the only way I know of to learn to really see what your subject looks like, and, more importantly, how to compensate for a photograph when I have to work from them. Things like the shadows are much darker and void of color compared to what I was looking at.

I took this photo at the end of my rough block-in. My goals are a little different for the block-in today. I wanted to try to keep it very loose and just have rough, clean color. My hope was to try to keep some of this as I refine the painting. In the end, I wasn't able to do this, but it's an approach I want to keep working at to see if I can make it work.

Well, you can see it didn't take long to cover up some of my rough block-in with more opaque or thicker paint, but that's okay. New approaches take a while to work out and I learned a few things that I'll try to apply on the next painting. Now my goal is to try to complete the painting as best I can.

At this point, I have most of the fruit blocked in and mostly finished. Now I'll get ready to complete the wooden box on the left side of the painting and then I'll finish up the foreground. Once that's done, I added in the blue berries.

Fruit Stack ©

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5x7 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Apples and Peaches. A step-by-step demo by George De Chiara

Apples and Peaches

In yesterday's post, I talked about how I came up with this arrangement of objects for the still life below. Today's post is all about the painting decisions. Like my other process blog posts, I tried to take pictures at each major step.. Now, let's get on with the demo!

Since one of the things I really wanted to work on is my accuracy in drawing what I see in front of me, I started this painting with a line drawing. Admittedly, the drawing is rough, but this should be enough to get me started down the right road. I'll continue to adjust the shapes as I paint them and get everything to "settle" into place on the canvas. That's one of the wonderful things about painting in oils; I can continue to adjust and refine my painting until I'm happy with it.

I love to get the color work as fast as I can. For me, this is the most exciting part of the painting; however, I don't want to sacrifice accuracy for pretty colors, so I did this very rough color pass to get everything blocked in and establish my color harmony. There isn't much paint on the canvas yet. This is all done with very dry paint scrubbed onto the surface. Some of this paint will show through when the painting is finished. Other parts will get wiped off and started over as I progress with the painting, but for now this gives me a pretty good idea where things are and what color they are.

Once my rough block-in is finished, I can start to refine the painting more and spend time getting things drawn accurately. Notice how the blue bottle has moved slightly to the right and the apples have settled into their place. That peach on the far left will need to move too. I didn't notice in my block in, but I have it way too high in the picture and there isn't enough space between it and the watch, which is leaning on the box. I didn't actually notice this until I had the whole peach painted (after this image was taken). I then had to scrape it off and move it. Not sure why I didn't notice it before I painted it, so I'll chalk that one up to laziness, the painter's enemy!

Just about done now. Notice the new position for the peach on the left? It looks much happier there doesn't it? I know I'm happier with its position, since I can fit the blue ribbon into place now. For me, this ribbon is a very important part of the painting. It can take the eye from the edge of the painting right into the heart of it, so being able to accurately fit it in is important.

The finished painting.

Apples and Peaches

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8x10 inches on linen panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Day 40 of the 50 Day painting challenge - How'd Ya Get Up There - by George De Chiara

How'd Ya Get Up There

 I can't believe I'm down to the last 10 paintings for my 50 paintings in 50 days challenge. It makes me want to do a NASA style countdown for the last paintings. 10...9...8...Well, you get the idea.

 For today's painting, I again turned to some of the fruit I bought yesterday at our local farmer's market. It took some time to come up with an arrangement I was happy with. I initially started off with some tomatoes and onions, and nope, didn't like that. Next, I tried a few lemons and limes... but, no I just painted limes yesterday. Hmm... how about these peaches? They have lots of great color to them, I especially like the one with the yellow stripe across the top. And maybe a plum to go with them. Ah yes, after an hour or so I finally had something to paint. Now I just needed to paint it! Below is how the painting came to life today.

Like most of my step-by-step blogs, here's an image of what I'm looking at while I paint. You might also notice that I took a few liberties with the blue foreground. Rather than painting it like it looked, I used one blue color for all of it. Once I got into the painting, I realized I didn't really like the darker blue color so I make it all the same.

This image was taken at the end of my rough block-in. Lately, I've been doing this with two brushes. The first pass is done with a large brush to get rough mass of the objects. Then, I go back over everything with a smaller, finer brush to refine the drawing a bit more. Since these paintings are relatively small (6x6 inches), even a small brush can cover a lot of canvas quickly, especially when the paint is thinned with turpentine. It's almost like painting with watercolors during this stage.

Once the rough block-in dries for a few minutes, I can begin to paint with thicker paint. This is also the first time I'll add white to my color mixtures. I started with the peaches mostly for one reason - I wanted to make sure I had a good handle on them before getting too far into the painting, just in case I need to scrape them off and try them again. I was a little worried about getting that fuzzy peach color on the first try.

Once I had the peaches under control, I could start to expand out to the other pieces of fruit. The plum is one of my favorite pieces of fruit to paint. If you really look at them they have very rich colors and the skin has a bit of shine to it, which picks up the colors around it. For this one, I used mixtures of Alizarin Crimson with Viridian and Ultramarine Blue.

The finished painting.

How'd Ya Get Up There

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Day 39 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Citrus Party - by George De Chiara

Citrus Party

 Today I found a new source for my models. It's a little farmer's market just around the corner from our house. They opened a few weeks ago, and I finally had a chance today to go and see it for myself. It's a tiny store, run by a very kind older gentlemen who showed my around the place and talked at great length about his produce. After looking around for a little while, I bought a few oranges, tomatoes, lemons, limes, plums, peaches, and a cantaloupe and even a mango. When I got home I was very excited to set a still life with my new models and go right to work. This arrangement came together pretty quickly, as it just needed a few adjustments and away I went.

 Here's how today's painting came to life:

Here's a photograph of about what I'm looking at while I was painting today.

This picture was taken at the end of my rough block-in. This process usually only takes a few minutes to get to. I'm working with paint thinned down with turpentine. My goal here is to get a good feeling of where all the objects are going to be and to make sure I have room for it all. I use a paper towel to wipe out lighter areas and to blend some of the paint together. For this one, I took a smaller dry brush and painted in some of the shadow areas, like in the limes and orange in the foreground.

Now that the rough block in is done, I can begin to refine the painting and start to add in color with thicker paint. For me, thicker paint doesn't necessarily mean thick paint; it's just paint that isn't thinned down with turpentine anymore. I started with the orange, since that's my center of interest. This is also the area that's going to have the strongest color, so by starting here I can better judge the rest of the painting's colors and values.

Once I was happy with the area that the orange is in, I must decide where to go next. I choose to paint the area above the orange because of the plate in the background. It's very close in color and value to the vase, and I wanted to make sure I could distinguish between the two. I find it easier to do this by starting with one of the objects and then stepping the values and or temperature up or down for the other object. The other reason for my choice was simply that I'd have about a third of the painting more or less done by completing this section.

Once the plate was done, it just made sense to work on the vase next. I still have the colors for the plate on my palette in case I need to do any touch ups on it. Plus this leaves the bottom of the canvas clean and dry, so if I need a place to rest my hand while painting I don't have to worry about putting it in wet paint. It was at this stage that I started to work on the bottom left corner of the painting. Once it was done, I went back over any areas that needed adjusting and added in any remaining details, like the blue  design on the vase.

The finished painting.

Citrus Party

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Day 37 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Jump Up - by George De Chiara

Jump Up

 For today's painting, I wanted to work on reflections, so I put a piece of glass on the bottom of my still life box. The reflections help give the foreground more interest without the need for additional objects. Plus, there just fun to paint! Now I just needed to find something to paint, so I went to my favorite source, the veggie drawer in the kitchen fridge. I quickly found these two apples and stacked them on top of each other to carry. As soon as I did, I knew that's how they needed to be painted, so I brought them to the studio and set up my still life. Still, I thought it needed something else, so back to the kitchen I went to grab a cherry. I liked the difference in sizes between the cherry and apples and how the cherry has a very long stem, while the apple has a very short one. I forgot to take a picture of the still life before I broke it down, so you'll just have to take my word that I was looking at two apples stacked on top of each other with a cherry next to them. Below is how the painting came to life:

This is the end of my rough block in, which I did this in several passes. On the first pass, I blocked in where the apples would go with very rough loose color. Then, I took a paper towel and wiped the wet paint, which is how I got all of those color streaks in the background and foreground. This pretty much removed the initial block in, so I again roughed in the shapes of the apples and cherry.

I waited a few minutes for my rough block in to dry. It dries quickly since there's very little paint on the canvas because it's mostly turpentine with little color added. I started with the green apple, since it's the medium shape. Getting this correct will help me judge the size of the other objects more easily. I'm also trying to let some of the initial wash come through in the background and foreground. I think I've mentioned before that I like the feeling this gives a painting, if I'm able to do it.

Once I'm happy with the size and shape of the first apple, putting in the second one goes pretty quickly. I make sure to use the colors from the green apple in the red one wherever I can. I also make sure to use the colors from both apples in the background and vice versa. This helps unify the painting by not having any one color in just one spot. I will also use these same colors, with a lot of white added to them, for the foreground when it comes time to paint it.

The finished painting.

Jump Up

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Day 32 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Almost Ripe - by George De Chiara

Almost Ripe

I've waited a day or two for these bananas to ripen a little before painting them. If you live in a part of the country that's getting the same kind of heat we are here in Texas, then you know if doesn't take long for them to go from green to ripe to needing to make banana bread. I could almost see them ripening before my eyes. I even changed the lights I use in my still life box to ones that don't get as warm so they wouldn't brown as I painted.

 I find placing bananas in a still life very challenging. First off, they are very long, so in a small painting like this they can cut the picture in half, if I'm not careful. My eye always wants to follow the curve of the banana so I also need to be careful to not have that be too distracting. After playing around with a few different possibilities, I finally came up with this set up, which is in the still life box, placed almost on the floor. I like it because I think it solves both of the issues I usually run into. By viewing my set up from the top down, I took out most of the curve issue with them. I also used the single banana to lead the eye from the edge of the canvas back towards the center of interest. What do you think, does that work?

By the way, if you need a good banana bread recipe, let me know, my wife makes a great one! 

Here's how the painting came to life today:

My very loose block in. Originally, I was hoping to let a lot of this wash come through in the final painting, but you'll notice I got a little thick with the paint as I went along. I was able to achieve some of this in the background towards the upper right corner and a little in the blue area to the left of the bananas. Next time, I'll have to be more careful to have more of it come through to the end painting.

Well, where else could I have started if not for the bananas? With them being so large in the picture and the center of interest, if they come out well, none of the other painting really matters. At this stage, I'm still blocking them in and working out the colors and drawing.

I'm just about done at this point. Once the bananas were finished, the rest of the painting went pretty quickly, which is why there aren't any images of it progressing. Notice how I was able to leave a little bit of that background wash showing through it the background. I think it helps give those areas a sense of airiness. It's a challenge to be able to leave little areas like that for me. I've got to remember to paint with a slightly drier brush so I don't cover everything up.

The finished painting.

Almost Ripe

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.

Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Day 8 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Today's Harvest - by George De Chiara

Today's Harvest

 My wife and I started our garden the first spring after we bought our home. Every since then, it's been a constant learning experience for us because in the beginning we had very little idea of when to plant, what to plant, and how often to fertilize and water. This year, our yields way up, but now we have to learn to keep the raccoons from eating all of our veggies.  (I am open to suggestions, by the way.) It's been a great hobby for both of us, and, slowly but surely, we are getting better at it. Marcie used to joke that we grow $80 tomatoes, since we use to get so few of them and spent so much money on the garden. This year that joke is down to $5 dollar tomatoes, but I'm not sure that's very accurate any longer since we are picking more than we can eat right now. Our peppers are also starting to produce lots of colorful fruit of all kinds, we have a couple of pumpkins on the vine, both Italian and purple basil, corn, squash, and even a few watermelon plants. So for today's painting, all I had to do was walk out to the garden and harvest what ever was ready to eat. I brought everything straight into the studio and started setting up this still life. I adjusted and removed some of the items I just picked until I was happy with my arrangement. Then I started painting. Here's how it came to life.

Here's a picture of what I'm looking at while painting. This is just to show you what I'm seeing while working. For this painting, I worked directly from my set up. If you like to grow tomatoes, those yellow bell's produce a lot of fruit. Beware though, they tend to spread out a lot. Ours is planted almost in the center of one of our 4'x10' beds and it's vines have just about woven themselves from end to end in both directions.

In this image, I'm working out the placement of all of my objects. I'm thinning my oils with a lot of turpentine at this stage and using a paper towel to wipe out areas that I want lighter. A good example of this is in the bowl. I blocked the whole thing in with the shadow color and then wiped out the lighter areas. At this stage, there's very little actual paint on the canvas.

Now that I'm happy with my block in, I can start to layer in thicker paint to build up the form and color of my objects. I usually try to start with something around my center of interest, which, in this case, is the largest tomato. I'm careful not to get any of the tomato's color on the bowl. Past experience has taught my it's very difficult to cover up a red color with a white color. I'll be just as careful when I paint the bowl color around the tomatoes. If I pick up any of the tomato color on my brush when I'm painting the bowl, it will totally change the color I'm trying to paint.

Once I establish where I'm going to start, I than try to work outward from that point. You can see in this picture I've worked on everything that touches that starting tomatoes except the little yellow bell tomatoes. This allows me to get a good start on almost everything in the painting. The sooner I can do this, the better I can judge the colors, edges, temperature and values of everything else I paint.

At this stage, I'm trying to get to the edges of my canvas. Once I can reach an edge, I can start to finalized areas of my painting. I think the peppers are at this stage now as well as most of the green background. From here, I'll work on the remaining areas that I haven't painted yet, like the foreground and the yellow tomatoes. You may also notice that I haven't painted the design on the bowl yet. I'll save that till the end. I want to make sure I have the underlying values correct first.

Everything had a pretty good start now. At this point, I go over everything and make sure I'm happy with the way it looks. I'm checking the color, drawing and the edges. From here, I'll put in the final details like the design on the bowl and the leaves and vines on the tomatoes.

The final painting.

Today's Harvest

Painting Details:
View Larger Version here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Day 6 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Sweet and Sour - by George De Chiara

Sweet and Sour

For today's painting, I wanted to continue to explore the compositional possibilities of the fruit I used yesterday. I changed out the apple for an orange - just for a change of color and texture. I also did not use the pear again, but something close to the same shape, a sugar bowl. The sugar bowl caught my eye this morning sitting in our cupboard. I knew as soon as I saw it sitting in the cabinet that I wanted to use it in my painting today. I really like the color and design of it. With my battery fully recharged for my camera, I took a few extra step-by-step photographs today to make up for the lack of them yesterday.

This is approximately what I'm looking at while I painted today. You might notice I didn't totally get rid of the apple like I said earlier, but I'm using so little of it I might as well have.  Like the other step-by-step blogs, this image is just to show you what I'm painting. I painted this from life.

My initial wash and drawing. I'm using a lot of turpentine to thin down my oil colors. I also try to use colors close to the actual colors. You can see this in the orange pretty clearly. Notice how even in this stage, I've blocked in some of the shadow color already. I find if I can leave some of these areas in the final painting, it helps to give the painting a sense of air to it. It's not always possible, but I always keep my eye out for the possibility.

Once I'm happy with my block in, I can start to refine my colors and shapes. I'm painting thick over thin, meaning I build up my painting layers with each one containing more paint, and, thus, being more opaque. I try to keep the shadow areas thin and the lighter areas thick.

From the initial area, I can now work outward. In this case, I'm working mostly front to back. I enjoy working like this since by starting one object, I can bring the previous object to an almost complete start. Notice how by painting the orange, I can pretty much finish off the plum in front of it and get a pretty good idea of where the plate is that the plums sit on.

At this point, I try to get most of the object the foreground blocked in further. The plums are at a pretty finished state at this point, but I'll continue to refine the plate as I work on the objects behind it and the green striped portion of the foreground.

 Now I continue to work on the objects in the background. First the sugar cup, and then the little hand fans that make up the back most objects. I leave out just about all the details in both of these objects until I'm completely happy with their shapes and values.

I'm just about done at this stage. I've even started to add in some of the details in the background objects. From this point, I try to go over everything in the painting making any final adjustments to the shapes, colors and edges of each object.

Here's the final painting one last time. I hope you enjoyed seeing how I painted this painting and reading some of my thoughts about each stage of the work. I'm never sure how much detail to go into with these things, so if there's something I'm not talking about that you would like to know, let me know. I'd be happy to answer any questions I can.

Sweet and Sour

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Day 5 of the 50 Day painting challenge - On The Spot - by George De Chiara

On The Spot

We seem to have a lot of fruit in the house these days. Our 20 month old daughter just can't get enough, so we keep things well stocked. I don't mind since I like to use fruit in my still life paintings and it's nice to have lots of models to choose from. For today's painting, I grabbed some of the many plums we have along with the last apple and pear. This is the first traditional still life arrangement I've tried with this square format. It presents some interesting compositional challenges. I kept finding that I had edges falling on the center mark if I wasn't careful. To avoid this, I used my view finder that has hash marks on the center to constantly view my arrangement and make adjustments. Once I was happy with my set up, I was able to start painting. I have to warn you, my camera battery died half way into this painting today so the demo is going to be a little short. Sorry...

Here's the arrangement, more or less from the angel I was viewing it at. Like all the other challenge paintings so far, I painted this from life and this photo it just to give you an idea of what I was seeing.

My initial drawing stage. This is just some very thin oil paint pushed around with a brush and paper towel. I don't use very much color at this stage as I'm mostly concerned with getting the placement of the objects correct. Once I'm happy with this, I let the painting dry for a few minutes. This lets the turpentine evaporate and the canvas is more or less totally dry when I start to paint again. By doing this, I avoid getting my next layer of color to thinned from the turp's on the canvas.

Now I start to lay down some color. Nothing is at its final stage yet. I'm just trying to work out some value changes and get some basic color down. Right after I took this photograph, I scraped off the pear and most of the blue paint behind it. I felt the color was starting to get a little muddy. Rather than add clean color on top of the muddy color, I wanted to remove it first.

Here you can get a better idea of how I worked on this. Notice the plum on the right just has some basic color right now and the objects I started with are now a little more complete. It's sort of a 2 steps forward, one step back approach. I block in an object or two, then go back and refine what I have painted before. I continue in this manner until I'm happy with the whole painting. Right after I took this photograph, my camera battery died. It takes a few hours to charge and I didn't have the time to wait before finishing this painting, so I pushed on.

Here is the completed painting once more:

On The Spot

Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 6x6 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Almost A Pair - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Almost A Pair

 I have to admit I came up with the title for this painting well before painting it. It came to me the other day while preparing lunch for my daughter (18 months). I had cut up about a half of pear for her, and, when I looked at the other half laying on the cutting board the title popped into my head. I knew I had to paint it, so today I got the left over pear out of the crisper draw and set up this still life. I tried a few different things for the background but really liked the idea of the plate and painted tin top since it sort of played off the title as well with both objects being circular.

Almost A Pair

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5 inches x 7 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Oranges with Glazed Clay - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Oranges with Glazed Clay

  I've had some problems with my ankle and have needed to stay off of it for a few days, so right before the weekend, my wife and I went to the local thrift store looking for crutches. It turns out, thrift stores are flush with barely used crutches. So with that task conquered,  I just had to look around for some new still life items. Among the new finds is this great glazed clay pot that I just couldn't pass up. I like how it is dark, yet colorful. I'm not sure why, but as soon as I bought it, I pictured using it with a few oranges. I've also been thinking about trying to plant a few bright flowers in it that would really pop against the dark glaze. I guess that contrast is I thought oranges would look good, too.

Oranges with Glazed Clay

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5 inches x 7 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Fruit Bowl - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Fruit Bowl

 We've had this bowl of fruit in the kitchen for a few weeks now. Every week or so the fruit gets changed out, as we eat what's in the bowl and refill it. I've thought about painting it off and on, but could never seem to come up with a composition that I liked. I think the problem was that I kept trying to use just the bowl with the fruit to come up with something. This time, I added in more objects to make a more complete composition. It took an hour or two  to come up with an arrangement that worked with this bowl of fruit, but in the end, I was happy, which made the painting much easier to complete.

Fruit Bowl

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 9 inches x 12 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Guarding the Castle - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Guarding the Castle

 Every now and again when I'm setting up a still life, I get these silly little ideas in my head about what could be happening at this moment in time if these object where actually alive. Today was one of those times. While setting up my still life, I had this idea that the little lemon was fending off the tomatoes who were trying to get past it. I'm not sure what triggered this thought, but I think it was the way the vine on the tomato looked. Then I thought, well, if the lemon is a guard he needs a shield, so I went outside to our lemon tree and picked a couple of leaves off of it. I figured the one leaf leaning on the lemon is his shield. The other ones are various weapons that the tomatoes knocked out of his hands. Once this story played out in my mind, the title was pretty easy to come up with.

Guarding the Castle

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5 inches x 7 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Fresh Picked Lemon Drops - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Fresh Picked Lemon Drops

 We've had this tree for a for years now and it's never really produced any fruit. The few little lemons it did create never ripened and were always very small. Last spring, I pruned the tree down a bit and made sure to fertilize it well over the summer. I also moved it to a spot that got more sun. Well, all my work seems to have paid off now as the tree is finally producing fruit! It still takes them a long time to ripen; in fact, I picked these today after the tree spent the winter inside keeping warm with these already growing on the branch. I'm hopeful I'll continue to get fruit from this tree since I really enjoy being able to include the leaves and branches in my paintings. 

Fresh Picked Lemon Drops

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5 inches x 7 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Pining For Summer - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Pining For Summer

 It's been a little over a week since I've been able to paint and it felt really good to be back in the studio today. After looking around the kitchen at the available veggies and fruit we had on hand, I decided to go with these tomatoes. I was originally drawn to the fact they where all still on the vine. I had this idea of doing something where the vine was hanging over the edge of something with long shadows casting down from them. The problem was as soon as I started to set this up, one of them fell right off the vine and I was afraid the rest of them would do the same, so I leaned them up against the back of my still life box instead. About half way through the painting I realized I had painted something very close to this once before. One of my very first daily paintings, The Last Tomato, seems to be a close cousin to this one.  Coincidentally, it was almost a year ago that I did this. I'm just off by about 2 weeks.

Pining for Summer

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 7 inches x 5 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to go to eBay auction.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Fruit Melody - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Fruit Melody

 Over the holidays I had a commission where the client asked me to include sheet music in the painting somehow. I had so much fun painting the sheet music that I've been itching to use it again. Well, today was the day. I really wanted something in the background and the sheet music filled that bill. I enjoy painting the sheet music because there's a certain abstract quality to it. Between the shadows from the holly branch and the dark printing of the notes, there are lots of opportunities for painting interesting shapes.

 After my wife had finished looking at this painting, she asked "Do you have a name for it yet?". Jokingly I said "Fruit melody".  Over dinner, the name kind of grew on me so I went with it.

Fruit Melody

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8 inches x 16 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to go to eBay auction.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Salsa Bowl - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Salsa Bowl

 Once again I need to thank my wife for another title idea. When I first showed her the painting, she said "It looks like you are growing a salsa tree". With an odd look on my face she went on to explain that it looks like the onion could be growing off the tomato vine, and, if that was the case, then surely they must grow on a salsa tree. I didn't really like the tree bit since it needs so much explanation, so I just changed it to Salsa Bowl. This painting has a few of my newest thrift store finds. Both of the tins on the left hand side are from my latest scouting trip. I really get excited about getting into the studio when I have new "models" waiting for me.

Salsa Bowl

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5 inches x 7 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

The One That Got Away - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

The One That Got Away

 I've painted a lot of Valentine's Day pictures for the last week or so and really needed a break from painting hearts today.  I've been looking for some new items to use in my still life paintings and had planned on going to a few thrift stores today, but we had an ice storm last night that pretty much shut everything down, so that was a no-go. Luckily, we have a lot of fruit around the house, so I picked out some nice looking grapes and set up this simple setting. Hopefully, the roads will be thawed out a bit tomorrow and I can hit the thrift stores for some new supplies.

The One That Got Away

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5 inches x 3 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Heirlooms and Oranges - Original Painting by George De Chiara

Heirlooms and Oranges

 This is one of the commission pieces I finished right before the holidays, but didn't have a chance to post. Several items in the still life were from my client.  She sent the two rings and the rug hanging in the background, and then requested to use sheet music in the set up, if at all possible. I really enjoy these types of challenges to work in the objects someone wants to see in a painting while still retaining my vision. It's a great exercise, as it forces me to think of new ways to put these objects together.  I am very happy to say that she was thrilled with the result and gave it as gift to a relative.  I was even more gratified when she told my wife that the gift was so appreciated that she got the nicest thank you note of her life after Christmas.

Heirlooms and Oranges

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5 inches x 7 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: SOLD
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

The Trio - Original Painting by George De Chiara

The Trio

 Wel, I hope this week goes better than the last one. I had fully intended to paint last week, but just couldn't seem to find the needed time.  The was largely because my wife and I tried to catch up on all the things we let slide while on vacation during the holidays. The good thing is that we are finally all caught up and I look forward to spending some much needed time in the studio this week. 

 I had started to paint these apples last week when I had a little time, but wasn't happy with my results so I wiped my canvas.  They were still set up in my still life box, though, so I thought I'd try them one more time today. I knew the mistakes I made last time, like getting into to much detail too fast and muddying the colors, so I was careful to avoid those same pitfalls this time. This time I made sure I blocked everything in first, then slowly worked in the detail I wanted.  Additionally, I kept my colors clean along with my palette, which really helps to keep things from getting too muddy.

The Trio

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 5 inches x 7 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to go to ebay auction.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Pair of Pears - Original Painting by George De Chiara

Pair of Pears

 I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I know we did. Now that it's all over I'm looking forward to getting back in the studio and paint again. With all of the craziness of the holidays, I have hardly had a chance to pick up my brushes in the last 2 weeks, so it felt really good to get a few hours of painting time today. I knew I'd be a little rusty so I tried to set up a simple, yet interesting still life to paint from. Some of the ellipses gave me problems as I worked the rust off, but over all I'm pretty happy with the results. I was fully expecting to have nothing to show for the day and that I'd have to wipe of off and start again tomorrow. These are the kind of surprises I like!

 I have a bunch of updates I want to try and get done this week to the web site and blog. There are a few of the paintings I did right before Christmas that I haven't blogged about yet, as well as a few ideas I have for other types of blog posts, so be sure to check back often.

Pair of Pears

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 7 inches x 5 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to go to ebay auction.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Background Music - Daily Painting by George De Chiara

Background Music

 I've been busy this last week working on commission paintings that are needed for Christmas. This is one of them. I've been lucky with this commission because they were able to supply me with some items they wanted to include in the painting. In fact, almost everything in this still life is from them, the horse statue, the jewelry, and the request to use sheet music. I have to admit I don't think I would have ever though to put these things together for a painting on my own. Doing these commissioned still life paintings are a great stretch for the creative muscles. It must have taken me over 2 hours to come up with something that worked, especially for this small size (7x5). 

 I must thank my lovely wife for the coming up with the name for this one. I was really stumped on until she suggested background music as a title. I liked it because of the sentimental meaning to most of the objects in the painting.

Background Music

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 7 inches x 5 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: On Hold.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Nanners - Daily Painting by George De Chiara

Nanners

 I was suppose to have a roofer come out to the house today to look at a leak we have, so I knew I'd have to paint in the studio while I waited.  I've thought about painting bananas  a few times, but could never come up with a composition I was happy with. After a little messing around, I came up with this because I liked the way this arrangement gave slightly different views of the fruit.

 I think anyone with young childen will know where the title for this one came from. Our daughter is just starting to be able to say a few words and every now and again she'll point at the bananas and say "Nanners!".

Nanners

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 3 inches x 5 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to go to auction.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Last of the Peppers - Daily Painting by George De Chiara

Last of the Peppers

 I set this still life at the end of last week with the intention of painting it over the weekend. However, our little girl, who's 13 months old now, has recently discovered the joy of running around at the park and the weekends are the best time to take her since both my wife and I can go. Besides everyone needs some time to just play! With the weekend over, I couldn't wait to get to painting. I've been watching the peppers continue to change colors every time I walked by them. These are the last of the peppers I think our garden will produce this year. There are a few still growing, but their production has really slowed down this week. The eggplants, on the other hand, are still going strong. In fact when I went to check on them today, they had new flowers on them and a half dozen more fuit growing. None of them are very large, but they sure are plentiful this year.

Last of the Peppers

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 11 inches x 14 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to go to auction.
Initialed on front. Signed and dated on back.

Grape Leaves with Fruit - Daily Painting by George De Chiara

Grape Leaves with Fruit

 
First off, let me apologize for the title of this one. It's not very original or catchy, but it's the best I could come up with tonight. I really wanted to challenge myself today by practicing painting very small and detailed by placing a lot of objects into the still life.  The goal is to get simple shapes of color with the largest brush I could get away with.  By going with a small canvas, it made all of my brushes a size or two larger by comparison.

Peaches and Plums - Daily Painting by George De Chiara

Peaches and Plums

 This isn't what I set out to paint today. I was really in the mood to do a landscape, so I packed up the car with all of my painting supplies and headed out to a spot that I thought would be good for painting. After driving around for an hour looking at different places, I didn't find anything that really struck me so I headed home. I found this bowl of fruit sitting on the kitchen counter that I was playing around with last night and decided to paint it instead. I'm not sure how they managed to grow peaches so large, but these are almost the size of a softball. I prefer the both the look and taste of smaller ones because they seem more natural, but these are what were at the store this week. In order to keep them from looking disproportionate to the plum, I shrunk their size a little, making them a touch smaller then they are in real life.

Orange Wedge - Daily Painting by George De Chiara

Orange Wedge

  While I was trying to come up with a name for this painting, I started thinking that the orange wedge looked like a little Viking boat docked along the shore line of the blue land.  The white area is the water and the blue cloth is reminiscent of the land. See how it kind of makes a little cove where the blue cloth just barely gets back on the canvas? The problem was I couldn't think of any title that would sum this idea up in a few short words, so I had to go with the slightly pedestrian Orange Wedge. If anyone out there has a better title let me know. I'd be happy to change it.

Daily Painting - Plum Stories

Plum Stories

It's funny how these still lifes evolve.  This was originally a painting of carnations! Now, I won't bore you with all the details of how a painting of carnation turns into a plate of plums, but it took a series of eight major changes before settling on this one.  Normally I have a pretty good idea of what it is I want to paint and I may even have some sketches of the idea to help me, but not this time.  I did manage to work in the cookie jar I bought a few weeks ago at a local thrift store. I've also been toying around with this vague idea to somehow use some books in a still life. Books are fun to paint because there is such a variety of size and color so I'm sure I'll use this idea again at some point.

Daily Painting - In Need of Ade

In Need of Ade

 I've been trying to figure out how to work this bowl in almost every still life I've set up since I bought it a few weeks ago.  I finally thought it might look good with some lemons and limes. I really enjoyed painting the details in the bowl, the little dark red rim around the outside, the slightly raised edge along the rim before the bowl dips down, and, of course, the painted details in the bottom of the bowl. I was trying to do a lot with transparent washes with this one, especially with the surface the lemons and bowl are on. I did have to use thicker and more opaque paint here and there, but that's okay. I like the effect of thick over thin paint.

 This painting will also be in an upcoming show with the Artists Of Texas at the Dutch Art Gallery in Dallas. I'll post more information in the next few days as I get more solid details.

Daily Painting - Room For One

Room For One

 I've been dying to paint this vase since I bought it a few weeks ago. It has such interesting color to it when the light shines through it. I also have a taller, skinner one that I can't wait to use in a set up one day. While I was painting this, I kept thinking to myself that the one apple stuck in the vase had turned to the other apples who where hoping to get in and said "There's only room for one, fellas." Of course, the next thought in my head was, how can I make that into a shorter title.

 This painting will be in an upcoming show with the Artists Of Texas at the Dutch Art Gallery in Dallas. I'll post more information in the next few days. It should be an exciting event. This is the first year I'll be showing with this group.

Daily Painting - Apricots with Plum

Apricots with Plum

  When I noticed that my wife had purchased some apricots at the store, I thought to myself  "I've never painted those before" and so I set up this still life. Originally I had included some black grapes, but as I was painting, I thought the whole thing looked a little busy, so I took them out. Although I had a lot of fun with the reflections I had to really spend some time working them out. I only wish I could have included more of the bowl so I could have had even more reflection, but I didn't want the fruit to get too small. When I was done with this painting I asked my wife what she thought. After a minute of looking at it and thinking, she finally said "I like it, but I ready to see something other then orange for a while". I guess she has a point, it seems like every painting this week had orange colored objects in it, except one (Garden Peppers).

Daily Painting - Clementine's Tea Party

Clementine's Tea Party

 A week after setting up this still life, I finally got around to making the final painting .  After examining the set up and making some adjustments over the week, I painted some smaller studies (see previous 3 posts). Since I had tried this same set up before and wiped it off, I knew where the trouble areas where going to be, namely the doll's head and some of the patterns in the material. I had a feeling if I could get the head to a pretty good point, the rest of the painting would fall into place for me.   Seeing no reason to put off the challenge, that's where I started. It was a little touch and go for a while, but I finally figured out how to paint this doll's head. Satisfied, from there I painted pretty much from right to left, top to bottom. What did I learn from this painting?  Well, painting patterns on fabric can be a real challenge and this still life I had a lot of those challenges. With a plaid background and all of the fabric patterns on the doll, I felt a bit overwhelmed at times and decided to try and keep the patterns fairly simple, using the details where I thought they would help and skipping them when I could.

Daily Painting - Orange Bowl

Orange Bowl

 I've been playing around setting up a still life that I wanted to paint on a larger canvas. I actually set it up on Friday, but didn't like the painting, so I wiped it off. Sometimes there just comes a point where nothing I do can save the painting and I'm better off just cleaning off my canvas. I really liked some of the parts of the set up though, so I decided to paint this one of just one side, which was the orange clementines against the blue dress of a rag doll. I guess that was the compliment side of what I arranged. I might try a few more of these little close ups before I either take it down or paint the whole thing again.