Orange Mum

The orange mum, front and center, wasn't quite that big relative to the other flowers. It just had a dominant personality that was hard to ignore.

Paint Brush

This is one of the "old stuff found around the house" series, although I actually found this well-worn paint brush in my parents' basement. The background was done first with a thin layer of red acrylic. Then on top of that is a layer of thick blue acrylic, which was applied with a palette knife. I used acrylic because it would have taken weeks, if not months for oil to dry. The brush was painted with oils.

Yellow Pear

Had one of those weeks when time and ideas were scarce. I chose similar subjects from a prior painting-- changed the orientation and background colors and the above painting is the result.

Old Blue Bottle

Initially, this painting was more realistic but also more timid. I loaded up the paint on the blue bottle and eliminated fussy details elsewhere. I like the reincarnation better. I suspect I will have to "oil out" this painting as clearly some areas are drying more matte than others.

Self Portrait

I am posting this self portrait because I ran across an artist whose work I really admire. She is Catherine Kehoe who was born in Connecticut and teaches at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her still life paintings are great but her self portraits are particularly engaging. In an interview, she said that she does her self portraits quickly with the paint left over from her other paintings. Although I suspect that I will not repeat this exercise often, this week I thought I would try to follow her example.

Cup, Pear and Lemon

This is the painting completed just before Christmas. As in most of my paintings, the light source is on the left. This time, taking a clue from Qiang-Huang, I blocked the light from falling on the background on the left side of the painting.

White Cup with Shells

I am not posting today's painting because I am not quite sure it is finished; I need to look at it again over breakfast. (The kitchen is the place where the final decisions are made.) This painting was actually done right before the similar painting with the little pitcher. I think I prefer this one because of the more subdued colors of the background and tabletop.

Red Handle

I was reading Hawthorne on Painting, first published in 1938. In the introduction, he talks about seeing the beauty of the ugly and the commonplace; "it is better to make a big thing out of a little subject than to make a little thing out of a big one."

This red handled fork is old, fairly beat up and at one time was probably commonplace.

Daisy with Limes

The above painting is now hanging in an eight person group show at Case Memorial Library in Orange, CT for the month of December. The group is the Artclectics whose members have been painting and drawing together once a week for over 5 years. The Artclectics work in a variety of mediums and their work ranges from abstract to representational. Come join us if you can for the opening reception on Thursday, December 9th from 5 to 7 p.m. in the library's second floor meeting room.

Chicken Little

We use this little pitcher for maple syrup but I thought he looked better with eggshells than with scattered pancakes. This painting was done a few days ago. Yesterday's painting was a scraper--all the paint scraped off with the palette knife after many hours of work. I think everyone who paints has had that experience (well, maybe almost everyone).

Sunflowers

Like some previous paintings, this was done on a panel first toned dark green. This eliminates having to fight all that white in the beginning but necessitates laying down the lighter values with copious amounts of paint.

Rose with Apple

Although I love oils, every now and then I like to play with acrylics. You acrylic painters out there amaze me. This stuff dries so fast!

Pomegranate

Last week, the demonstrator at the Hamden Art League meeting was Dick McEvoy, who gave a very energetic pastel landscape demo. His major point was to have fun while making art (which he clearly did during the demo). He snatched random colors from his pastel box, made lively marks and color patches and in the end, the painting read as trees and a stream alive with color and movement.

Inspired by the fun motif, I changed by usual perspective (still life at eye level) and put in color patches not seen in real life (just because I felt like it). The result is the above painting.

Chocolate Covered

I was in the mood for something more decadent than a pear. The doughnut was from a local shop, Whitney Donut. It was funny looking over the selection not with taste but with visual appeal in mind. At the time, I wasn't thinking about including the bag in the composition but I liked the white bag and the bag was the more challenging to paint.

Single Blue

In this painting, I used a variation of a technique learned at Stanley Bielen's workshop. I toned the panel with dark green acrylic -- because it dries within minutes there was no waiting to start painting. The challenge was to get the illusion of petals without painting each one individually.

As always, these dark paintings are more difficult to photograph accurately, the background is not quite as dark as it appears and excuse the glare on the upper right.

Lemons (Twice)

The painting below was painted a while ago and put in the not good enough to show, not bad enough to throw out right away rack. It just felt too timid. This week, I had another go at it and the result is the above painting.

Eggs, Three Ways

This painting continues my keep it simple mood. Before I started this, Humpty Dumpty came to mind and I thought it might be less messy to use blown out eggs. I had to google how to do it and I must say it took some severe lip pursing to get the job done.

Meadow Grass

While walking by a roadside meadow a few days ago, I spotted tall, thin grasses with these wispy cattails. They were so delicate; I thought it would be an interesting challenge to paint something with essentially no mass placed in a jar with no water. Primarily, it is a painting of air.

Mike

Wow, look, it is not a still life. Although I suspect portraiture will never be my thing, after watching Sherrie McGraw do a portrait demo, I attempted to apply some of her portrait principles while doing the above study. Some of her recommendations: Don't model in the shadow--the shadow is the stability and should be simple and structural; Don't over soften the transitions from shadow to light and finally-- Go for the easiest solution!

Sherrie McGraw Workshop

Last week I attended a Sherrie McGraw workshop at the Wethersfield Academy for the Arts in Wethersfield, CT. Sherrie is an incredibly accomplished artist, a generous and gentle person and a wonderful teacher. Above, you see Sherrie, her still life setup and the beginning of her painting on a toned canvas. Her first suggestion?-- work on the still life set up until you are dying to paint it.