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I Grew Garlic - An original 6x6 still life oil painting by George De Chiara

I Grew Garlic

A few years ago my wife and I decided to try our hand at growing garlic. Since most of our garden sits idle over the winter it seemed like the perfect thing to try. If you've never grow garlic, it's really pretty easy and there are an impressive number of varieties to try. In the fall, plant the cloves and water daily till they sprout. If you've ever left your garlic out too long in the kitchen, you already know what this looks like. Anyway, once winter sets in there's really nothing left to do with them until spring when you resume watering and fertilizing. We usually pick a few of our plants towards the end of spring or the beginning of summer to see how they are doing. Then we either pull them all or give them some more time. Usually we can pull up the whole bed just in time to plant tomatoes or some other summer crop. Then we get to enjoy a rich variety of garlic all year-long. One other great benefits is without fail harvesting the garlic crop gets us excited to start the summer growing season. 

 This painting was one of the last bulbs of garlic I picked this year. After picking it I nailed it to our fence and brought out my painting supplies to paint this picture. Then...well, I sort of forgot about it. I packed up everything in my old studio to get ready to move it into the new studio and there the painting sat packed away waiting for the new studio be ready. Finally the new studio space is ready and I was unpacking when I rediscovered it. Just in time too, since we are already making plans for our next crop!

I Grew Garlic © 

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.

Molasses and Garlic - An original oil painting by George De Chiara

Molasses and Garlic

 For the last few days, I've been thinking about doing a still life with a few of the bottles of cooking supplies in our cupboard. After grabbing the ones that I thought would be interesting to paint, I tried a few different arrangements adding a new bottle here and there and removing a few as I went. After a little while, I started to realize I needed something else besides the bottles so I added the garlic and measuring cup. Everything came together pretty quickly once I did that and so the only thing left to do was to paint it.

Here's how the painting came to life:

I took this image when I felt I had finished my rough block-in. I wanted to have a bit more color during this stage then I normally do. At this stage in the painting process, I was thinking I'd paint a little thinner in the next stages of the painting and let a lot of this underpainting show through. Well, what's that saying about best laid plans...?

Now I'm starting to refine my block-in and add more color. At this point, I'm starting to realize that I'm probably not going to be leaving as much underpainting as I thought. Oh well, this is the way things go sometimes. I've just got to roll with it and make the best painting I can. If I need to paint thicker to get things painted accurately and looking the way I want, then so be it.

At this point I'm just about done. I have a few little details I want to add in and then I'll refine and clean up any areas that I think need it. It's tempting sometimes to get into some of these final details too soon. I have to remind myself that it's better to get the larger color and values correct first. The lettering and design on the bottles is really just icing on the cake. 

Molasses and Garlic © 

 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.

Hot Terra Cotta by George De Chiara

Hot Terra Cotta

 It's been a little over a week, maybe even closer to 2 weeks, since I last painted. Raising a newborn and a 22 month old has really started to catch up with me and my wife. We both are starting look a little exhausted and sleep deprived at this point, but there is hope. The baby is starting to sleep longer at night and our 22 month old is starting to adjust to her new sister and slipping back into her routines.

Anyway, I've been thinking about doing this painting for a while now. It's a commission piece for one of my collectors who wanted a painting to go along with one of the 50 paintings in 50 days pieces he bought. That painting was of cayenne peppers, so to complement it, he wanted haberneros. Habeneros have beautiful variations in colors that range from bright yellows to deep reds when on the verge of being overripe, so they make great subject matter for still lifes. I really didn't think it would be that hard to find a few good haberneros for this painting, but I had to go to 3 different stores before I found any that didn't look like they've been sitting in the produce section for months.  The first two stores only had the deep red color, which, while pretty, doesn't really capture my interest. Finally, I headed to the Mexican market and found what I was looking for. With these colorful peppers in hand, I was anxious to get back to the studio and start painting again.

Now, I seem to get rusty quickly when it comes to painting. Too long of a break (anything over 3 days) and I'm paying for it the first few days back. Knowing this, I made sure not to rush the painting process. Instead, I committed to wiping off anything I didn't like and taking as much time as needed to get something I was happy with. After a few days, I seemed to be back in the swing of things and I was able to finish up this painting.

Here's how it came to life:

Here's a photograph of the still life I was painting. You might notice I didn't paint the little pepper at the top of the terra-cotta pot that's standing up. Originally, I thought I would pull back a little further, but once I started placing the painting on the canvas, I realized I needed to crop in a little tighter to get the right feel. After I did this, I really didn't like the way that pepper looked, just barely squeaking into the painting, so I left it out.

This image was taken at the end of my rough block-in. This was actually the second block-in I did. The first one was pulled back a little more, but I think it made the peppers too small in the picture, and, since they are the reason my client commissioned this painting, I wanted to make sure they were very prominent. You might also notice that I only blocked in one little pepper just to the right of the plate. Originally, that's all I had there. Once I got to that portion of the painting, I felt it needed more interest, so I added another pepper.

I give the block-in a few minutes to dry so it doesn't blend with the more accurate colors I start to use in this stage. Most of the paint at this point is still pretty thin, except for the plate and the peppers on it. This was the area I started with, so it's the most complete at this point. The peppers are mostly all painted with the same colors, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Cadmium Red and Cadmiun Yellow Pale, just mixed in different ratios with each other.

At this point, I've more or less finished off the top half of the canvas. Since I had given most of the painting a good once over in the previous stage, this part of the painting went pretty quickly. The terra-cotta pots are painted with different mixtures of Terra Rosa, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cadmium Red and Viridian. To finish the painting off from here, I pretty much worked from the middle down. I spent some time trying a few different arrangements of peppers to the right of the plate. I liked the two peppers close together the best out of everything I tried. I feel it gives this area a little interest and by having the stem touch the plate it really tied the left and right half of the painting together well.

The finished painting.

Hot Terra Cotta

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.

Day 22 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Why Can't We Be Friends? - by George De Chiara

Why Can't We Be Friends?

Every now and then, I come up with the title of a painting before I even start painting it. It's pretty rare, I think in the last 3 years it's happened maybe 5 times. Usually I settle on a title either while I'm painting it, usually towards the end of the painting or after I'm done painting, but today was one of those rare days where I had a title before I started. I woke up this morning with this song line running through my head, Why can't we be friends? Over and over again, I just couldn't shake it. Then it hit me, that's what I'm going to call today's painting. I was planning on painting these bell peppers, but I didn't know what I was going to do with them until that song line got stuck in my head. Then the idea came to me pretty quickly. That little banana pepper is trying to fit in with the larger bell peppers and he's asking them, "Why can't we be friends?" Silly I know, but that's how today's painting idea came to me. Now, I'll show you how the painting came to be.

First off, here's a photograph of approximately what I'm looking at. There are some things that just don't come through in this image. The reds in the foreground bell pepper were much deeper in real life and not nearly as dark.  This is one of the reasons I always try to paint from life when I can. Sometimes it's not possible, but when it is, it's well worth the effort.

This image represents the end of my rough block in. From this point on, I'll paint with thicker paint and take more time to create my color mixtures, but to get to this point, I use very thin paint with rough color mixtures. If areas get too dark, I can use a paper towel to wipe off the paint. That's how the light shapes were drawn on the background pepper. The paper towel is also great for blending and spreading the thin paint, which is how I blocked in most of the foreground.

I let the block in dry for just a few minutes so I don't pick up any of the thinned, rough color. Once it's dry, I can begin blocking in the painting with better drawing and color. I'm no longer thinning the paint with turpentine at this point. I'm also introducing white into my color mixtures. You may notice I've painted a bit of the background pattern already. Normally I wouldn't bother painting this kind of detail so early in the painting, but I want to have some time to think about whether I like this pattern or if I just want to use some solid colors.

The red bell pepper has really been a challenge to paint. There's an intensity to the colors that I've struggled with trying to match. The other test with these peppers is accurately represent the reflective shine they have. If I make the reflections too light, I lose the modeling on the shape. I'm also careful with the details I put into the reflections and shadow area. I only put in what I see when I quint my eyes and look. This image does have a bit of glare in the shadow area of the red pepper that I didn't notice when I took this image.

At this stage, the objects in the paintin are almost complete. There are a few details to add in still, like some of the writing on the book that the orange pepper is sitting on, and I need to either complete the pattern in the background or change it. In this case, I like the way that pattern looks, so I'll complete the pattern across the background and add in a few other details as well.

The finished painting.

Why Can't We Be Friends?

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 17 of the 50 Day painting challenge - One Hot Number - by George De Chiara

One Hot Number

When I was setting up my still life a few days ago (Day 15), I had an idea for another still life with my peppers. Today's idea was a little simpler, with just three peppers, but I think it has more impact. The small size of these challenge paintings works very well with small, intimate arrangements like this. It gives me a chance to really concentrate on accurate drawing, values, and colors. I also had another opportunity to use sheet music for my background. I've done this on several still life paintings in the past. I think the sheet music gives the background some interest and uniqueness, while not detracting from the main objects. Besides, there's something really interesting about painting the notes on the paper.  I don't really remember how to read sheet music anymore, it's been too many years now and I take a lot of liberties with it when I'm painting it. I'll move the notes around to give it more of a pattern. Below is how today's painting came to life.

Here's a picture of approximately what I'm looking at while painting this. If I have the option to work directly from life, I take it, which is what I did today. This picture is here to give you an idea of what I'm seeing. I placed a large box towards the back of my still life box to give that darker shadow. I felt this added a little interest to the background. It's also a visual clue to the eye to stop heading in that direction. A lot of landscape painters use this trick on the bottom of the canvas by having a large shadow go across the bottom. I felt it worked just as well on the top of this canvas in this case.

This picture was taken at the end of what I consider my block in. At this point, all the major shapes are represented and some basic colors have been laid in. All of this work is done with paint thinned with turpentine. The highlights and lighter values are wiped out with a paper towel. To draw the peppers, I used the edge of a large brush. For the green tops and shadows I used a slightly smaller brush in order to get the finer shapes. One of the reasons I like this approach so much is that in very little time I have a pretty good representation of what I'm painting, while still having a loose, painterly feel. I don't have a lot of paint or time invested in this picture yet, so if I want to make changes it's not a big deal. In this case, I'm happy with what I have and I'll continue to work on it.

This stage is almost a repeat of my block in. I'm just cleaning up some of the drawing and getting a little more paint on the canvas. Most of the middle tones on the peppers are painted now as well as a few darks. I'm using mixtures of Cadmium Red, Cadmium Scarlet, Terra Rosa and a little Ultramarine Blue and Viridian,  plus a little white, but not much at this point. I've also adjusted the background to have more yellow and violet in it. I've kept these mixtures pretty thin at this point.

Now I start to establish a few lighter values on the peppers. At this point, I'm not sure if these are the final values for the lights or not, I just need to get something down to judge the other values against. It important to get as large of a value range as possible as early as possible for this very reason. This doesn't mean you want to get a white and a black down, but what is going to be close to your lightest light and darkest dark for your painting.

I continue along working on the peppers and getting some of the background color cleaned up and corrected. I'll save putting in the notes until everything else is worked out. It's way to difficult to try to adjust something major with the background if the notes are painted in too early. I do need to get some base color down though to paint the cast shadows and correct some of the edges on the peppers.

The finished painting.

One Hot Number

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 15 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Five Fingers of Peppers - by George De Chiara

Five Fingers of Peppers

Happy Fourth of July everyone! I hope you all had a great day with family and friends. I spent a few hours of my Fourth painting, and, of course, working on this blog. My models today came straight from our garden. A few evenings ago, I picked a large bunch of ripe, red cayenne peppers. During the spring when I planted these, I had high hopes of being able to get a few to paint, but I had no idea how plentiful our harvest would be. Now my wife and I are talking about how we are going to dry and grind them. I can't wait to use a few for our barbeque rub. I hope they are as tasty as they look.

 My wife suggested the title, Five Fingers of Peppers, for this painting. After thinking about it for a while,  I decided to go with it. She's usually pretty good with coming up with a witty titles for my work and this one was no exception.

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

I forgot to take a picture of my actual set up before I broke it down, so today's step-by-step pictures start with my block in. For this block in, I used the edge of a large brush with a bit of Cadmium Red and Alizarin Crimson Permanent thinned with turpentine to get the basic shape and layout of the peppers. For the background, I used Ultramarine Blue and Transparent Oxide Red, again thinned down with some turps, and a large flat brush. I then took a clean paper towel and dipped it into my turpentine and squeezed out the excess. Using the damp part, I wiped out a few lighter areas. The wetter the paper towel is, the more paint it will remove. The dry portion removes very little paint, but does a great job blending with paint on the canvas.

Now that the block in has dried for a few minutes, I can start to build up my paint and not worry about it getting thinned or blending with the block-in wash. You can see in this image that I'm pretty much working on everything at once within a small area. I have the peppers started, the background, and the glass all at about the same stage in the center of the painting. This is mostly due to the glass being such a large shape in the painting.

I continue working on just about everything in the painting. This is the only way I'm able to paint the glass correctly. I will go back and fine tune the peppers once I think I have a handle on the glass. I've found that the easiest way to paint glass is to squint my eyes while looking at it and then try to paint the values I see. For the color, I look with my eye's open. I try not to think about the glass, but rather the colors I'm seeing. A large portion of the glass is nothing more than the colors behind it. It takes a while to get it looking correct and I just need to trust that I'm being as accurate as possible. If I am, it will look like a glass in the end.

I've just about got everything to a near-finished stage at this point. There's still a lot to do, but, overall, I have a pretty good idea of what my painting will look like. I still need to add the green tops and stems to the peppers as well as give them a few more values, like highlights and a few shadows.

The finished painting.

Five Fingers of Peppers

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 14 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Little Poppers - by George De Chiara

Little Poppers

Somehow, in all the heat we are having here in Texas, our tomato plants are still managing to produce and ripen handfuls of tomatoes just about every day. Every evening, I go out when the sun is setting and check on the garden, do a little weeding and pick everything that's ripened during the day. Last night, I picked a bunch of cherry tomatoes and  yellow bells, along with a large handful of cayenne peppers. When I brought them into the house, I laid them out in the kitchen in piles to show my wife the harvest for the day. While waiting for her to come and see I was struck by the way the tomatoes looked scattered across the counter. I knew I had found what I would paint today. 

Here's a photograph of what I'm painting today. To get this arrangement, I put the tomatoes in a bowl and dumped them out in my still life box. From there, I removed a few that seemed to have piled up too much and moved a few others to help my composition. All of these adjustment are done by looking though my view finder, which really helps me make these decisions.

Once I was happy with my set up, I started painting. I used a large brush, large compared to the size of the painting, and started to roughly paint where the tomatoes go. I used a slightly smaller brush to rough in the shadows and a paper towel to wipe out some highlights and mid-tones.

Once the block in is done, it's just a matter of cleaning up the shapes, color and edges. It's a real challenge to try to capture the translucency of the tomatoes. I find it helps to have a little spot of lighter color at the edge of the shadow side. This shows up the best in the yellow bell tomato I've painted in the foreground.  I think it also helps to put a little spot of color in the shadow, just on the opposite side the highlight.

I'm continuing to work to the top of the canvas. For the most part, I'm using color mixtures that are already on my palette. I'll try to cool them off a bit as things recede, and alter the color to give each tomato more variety.

Here, you can see how I progressed and  continued to work towards the top of the canvas. It was a nice change of color and shape to finally get to paint my one lonely pepper.

The finished painting.

Little Poppers

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 1 of the 50 Day painting challenge - Hung Out To Dry - by George De Chiara

Hung Out To Dry

Here we go! Day one of the 50 paintings in 50 days challenge. These fine peppers came from our garden this year. We have Cayenne, Fresno and banana peppers all represented here. The banana's are by far our biggest producer this year, but in all fairness I lost one of the Fresno plants last month. Not sure what happened. One day I went out to check on the garden and it was laying on the ground with its stalk broken. You'll also notice that the Cayenne is not yet red like it's suppose to be. This is one my 20 month old daughters contribution to our gardening. She likes to pick anything she can reach whether it's ready to be picked or not. You should see all the tomatoes we have ripening on our window sill from her. They seem to be her favorite target.

 One of the things I really want to do with this painting challenge is offer more images of the painting process. I am going to try to get into the habit of stopping and taking pictures every so often so you can see the painting come about. Here is how this one started off.

This is a pretty typical block in for me. My oil paint is thinned out with turpentine to the point where it's more like watercolors than oils. I'm not very concerned with getting exact shapes at this stage. I just want to get a pretty good feel for where everything is going to be on the canvas. You can see I've just started to refine the pepper in the upper right corner with a little thicker paint and more careful drawing. My total painting time at this point is under 5 minutes.

Now that I know where all of my large shapes are going to be I can begin to go back and refine them. You can see with the first pepper I started with I try to take things to a pretty complete stage before moving on. With object that are "on their own", this is a little easier to do. This doesn't mean I won't go back and tweak things in this area it just gives me something to judge the rest of the painting with.

I continue to work on the bigger bunch of peppers here. I also try to continue to branch out towards the edges of the canvas as much as I can at this point. This allows me to bring larger pieces of the painting to a more complete stage. I find it helpful to judge one part of the painting against other parts, so the sooner I can get other parts started the better. You can also see how that initial wash of color has helped me to see how complete or incomplete the rest of the painting needs to be before I've made my statement.

Just about done now. Everything is blocked in and I've refined all of my shapes. This is the point where I really start to slow down my painting. I want to make sure everything I do now is going to help me say what I want to say about this arrangement. I'll paint a few brush strokes and step back and look at the overall image before proceeding on. From this point to the complete painting takes almost as long as the first few steps combined.

The completed painting. You can see I've gone back over just about everything in the painting to give them there final touches. I also added a bit of a patteren to the background and added that darker shape or shadow on the left. This is an old landscape trick to push the eye into the painting. In this case I feel it helps break up that larger open space as well as direct the eye into the peppers.

 I forgot to take a picture of the real set up before I broke it down today. I'll try to remember to do that with tomorrow's painting. And of course, let me know if you have any questions about the way I work and feel free to comment!

Hung Out To Dry

 
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.

I Grew Onions - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

I Grew Onions

When my wife and I have the time and inclination, we love to drive to Dallas and go to the farmers market they have there. First off, it's huge! There are 3 sheds for produce,  a couple of flower and plant vendors and an indoor vending area. One of the produce sheds is reserved for local farmers, so this is our favorite place to go. Everything tastes and smells so good. It's hard to walk out there without armfuls of fresh produce. On our of our trips there, I noticed almost all the farmers have a little sign somewhere in their booth that says "I Grew" and then a blank spot for them to write in what ever they grew. Since I picked these onions from our garden this morning, I thought the title seemed appropriate. Tomorrow we are going to harvest the rest of our onion crop.   Now if we can just figure out how to properly cure them, we should have onions for good long while.

I Grew Onions

 
Painting Details:
Larger Version available here
Size: 8 inches x 10 inches on canvas panel. 
Medium: Original Oil Painting
Frame: none
Availability: Click here to bid.
Signed on front. Signed and dated on back.

At Least There's Cheese - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

At Least There's Cheese

 When I saw this broccoli in the store, I was struck by the wonderful color in it. Full of greens, blues, and purples, I had to buy it to paint. I knew I didn't want a lot of other items in the painting so I could concentrate of the broccoli. Still, the set up needed something else to give it a bit more color and to contrast the organic shape of the broccoli. And what goes better with broccoli than cheese? This was a nice painting for a couple of reasons.  First, there was the result of the painting itself.  Secondly, it solved my dinner dilemma for the night. Two birds with one stone, I guess.

At Least There's Cheese

 
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.

Sunday Tradition - Original Oil Painting by George De Chiara

Sunday Tradition

This painting reminds me of my childhood. Growing up in an Italian home, every Sunday we had pasta for dinner. All day long the sauce (red lead, gravy, Sunday sauce - take your pick) would simmer on the stove with rest of the ingredients sitting close by to be added at the proper time. Cans of tomatoes, garlic, onions and olive oil would all wait their turn to flavor the meal. A pinch of this, a little more of that, let it simmer for an hour, taste and repeat. On and on it goes for hours. It's a tradition that my wife and I continue to this day, especially since this has turned out to be my little girl's favorite meal of the week.  

This is one of my few attempts at painting transparent glass.  Representing the reflectiveness of the bottle and the translucency of the olive oil has been one of the most interesting technical challenges I have given myself in a long time. I had to continue to remind myself to squint at the bottle and then paint what I see. The contrast between the transparent bottle and the color of the veggies really captures the liveliness of Sunday and this cooking ritual.

Sunday Tradition

 
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.

Eye Candy - Daily Painting by George De Chiara

Eye Candy

 
Over the weekend, my wife and I went to the grocery store.  Now I hate the grocery store, except for the produce section where I get to pick out things to paint.  Sometimes I just ask my wife pick out something interesting or ask for certain things, but since I had the time, I went with her. I don't know when peaches and plums became the sizes of baseballs, so I skipped them and went to the organic section.

After picking up and rejecting a few options,  I picked up these carrots to paint since they still had the large leafy part that grows above the ground attached. These seem to be a lot harder to find in the stores these days. Everything is those prepackaged varieties. I like the ones with the stalks on them still since they remind me of Bugs Bunny; however, the leaves wilt pretty quickly so I think this will be the only painting I will do from this bunch. Besides they look pretty tasty so I think I'd rather eat them, "Ah, What's up Doc?".

Yesterday's Harvest - Daily Painting by Geogre De Chiara

Yesterday's Harvest

 When my wife came in yesterday with the peppers she picked from the garden with some of the leaves still on them, I knew right away they had to be painted before they were eaten. I asked her not to touch them before I had a chance to use them.  She muttered something about pico de gallo and dinner, but without too much fuss agreed to my request. So, I set them up and painted them. The colors in the peppers where so rich that I found it  quite a challenge to try and replicate them with paint. We have a lot of peppers growing in the garden right now so don't be surprised if you see a few more of these before the season is done.

Daily Painting - Hot Tomato

Hot Tomato

 I'm not sure why I put these things together other than I liked the way the shapes worked with each other. I wasn't really thinking about what they are as much as how the red of the tomato compliments the green of the peppers. It wasn't until after I was done painting when my wife walked into the studio and said "Who has peppers and tomatoes with their tea?" that I thought about what the real world relationship between peppers, tomatoes, and a nice cup of steaming hot tea. Before I could come up with an answer, she added, "You can call this one hot tomato" and walked out again. I was originally thinking that this is still part of a larger still life set up that I've been working on this week (see previous posts). I'm not sure if I'll use all of these elements in the final set up or not yet, like I said early I wasn't thinking about the larger picture when I set up this up and I'm not sure how it fits with some of the other elements I want in the final set up. Stay tuned to find out...

Daily Painting - Garden Peppers

Garden Peppers

 Still messing around with my set up from Friday. I added a plate to one side of it and then put these peppers from the garden in there. In keeping with my idea to paint little sub-sections of this larger still life set up, I did this close up of the peppers. The subtle shades of green in the peppers were challenging to paint. At one point I mixed up a color for the peppers and actually had to  hold my brush right next to it to see if the color was correct. I'm sure this seems really obvious to do, but it just struck me. It's a real eye opener to how off my color mixtures where until I did this. It reminds me that I must make sure to pay attention to what I am actually seeing and not what I think I'm seeing. Ah, one of the biggest struggles in painting...seeing!

 Oh and yes, I grew these peppers in my garden this year. They taste great!

Daily Painting - Butternut Glow

Butternut Glow

I have to admit I was pretty amazed when I cut this open to see the wonderful color inside. I knew when I saw it that I wanted to paint it. After struggling with the arrangement for a while I settled on this. I think I was being a little timid with cutting up the squash, which limited me to what I could do with it. After all, I couldn't put it back together if I made a mistake. When I was done painting, I gave the squash to my wife since she wanted to cook it, and then cleaned up the studio a bit. When I went out to the kitchen, I noticed how nice the arrangement was my wife had made on the cutting board. "I've got to get another one these and try this again", was the first thought to run through my head, which was then followed by my best Homer Simpson "Doh!"