Fruit makes a great study. I'm not the first to discover this. You make a painting with fruit as the subject and you have something very easy to live with. The beauty of a pear, or blackberry, will not bruise or perish. It will remain as long as the painting is hung on a wall. The elegance of something so quiet and simple keeps the eye returning. An artist can arrange such items in a painting, and the primary reason we bring them to our home is put away, that is, to nourish our body. What comes to our eye is the beauty of form, the light on surface, and subtle color and value transitions. A group of lemons can wait in quiet light, to be taken from the branch that supplied their full maturity. They are ready for the hands, to flavor and arrange.

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 Chicken Paintings ... and lemons too.

I ended 2012 and began 2013, painting.  One of the great things about painting so much is , you find how easy it is to be productive as a painter. I'll post more as I take pictures of them. 

 

These are some Ads I designed for climbing equipment companies.

Painting For My Daughter.

I painted this red onion for my daughter. It was for her wedding shower, and has a sweet story, between mom

and daughter. You can learn much from painting subjects seeming to be monochromatic. What seems to be

such a dominant local (single) color, will give an opportunity to explore what yo need to add, to make the

composition richer in color. Red onions are both red and violet, and purple and more. In a small study, you can

make wonderful discoveries.

The contrast between deep purply reds and the illuminated area, gave the opportunity to learn that cadmium red

light, is about as light as it gets. What looks like highlight, is a bit of yellow ochre mixed with the c-red light.

You may see in the foreground, and not so much on the onion, there was a great opportunity to play with the green

and yellow, the complements for both red and violet in the onion. Pay careful attention to neutralize with the

complement, and it will belong where you place it in the rest of the composition. The background isn't black. It's

a careful effort to use all the players in deep values. This is the difference you see in master paintings. That rich,

colorful work in the background. Without it, you will have a flat, artificial space.

I had it near finished. I must confess, I did most of it watching t.v. in bad light. It was more like a knitting project

that night. I refuse to apologize for bad painting manners, it was so enjoyable. In the morning, the onion looked fine. but the yellow in the focal point, between the cast shadow and ground plane, was chartreuse. It looked amazing, but in the bad light, it looked more like yellow ochre. I wouldn't have pushed that color so hard, but for the bad lighting. I would have left it that way, but it was a gift - didn't know if she would 'get' it. You can see the yellow/green/orange play in the foreground (my phone camera mangled the brushwork).

As any artist finds, doing small studies (this is 8" x 10"), will accelerate skill. Small studies allow you to quickly cover a broad variety of subjects, learn the color and techniques, then take the information to larger works. That is, if you can get past how fun small studies can be.

Here's a little cave I found in the Pasadena Arroyo.

I sketched it and thought it would be fun to post.

Sketchbook

Here are some selections from my sketchbook.

Wish I had more to say. I've been working on some field sketches, itching to comple this project

Yosemite foodbridge from my sketchbook

Stoneman Bridge

Le Conte Memorial Lodge.