Collage of My February Paintings

Collage of my "Pastry Pleasure" paintings

Wow!  What a delicious-looking collage!  Please tell me which painting is your favorite.

I tend to jump around in my choice of subject matters from day to day to stave off boredom and stay excited.  It has been a great learning experience to work on the "Pastry Pleasure" series.  Around the 12th painting, I felt bloated with pastry and seriously considered ending the series sooner, but thought better of it just to see if I could handle the "pastry fatigue."  I am glad that I saw it through.

I did learn a lesson or two from my first monthly challenge.  Having a theme for a month turned out to be one of the smartest ideas I have ever come up with.  By sticking to a theme, I really got to explore the subject in depth.  For one thing, you wouldn't believe how much I learned about painting texture, from powered sugar to chocolate glaze!  The results of my explorations are impressive too.  Even if some paintings are stronger than others, or vice versa, doesn't the whole collection look fabulous?

Twenty is, however, a lot of paintings!  From now on, I am going to limit myself to 16, or 12, or 9 paintings for my monthly challenge series, depending on how much time or material I have available during the month.  Staying focused is one thing; getting burned out is another!

I hope you enjoyed the ride.  Tomorrow I am going to announce the painting to be given away.  If you want to win a painting, please sign in to follow my blog.  Thanks!

"Chocolate Strawberry" (oil on linen; 4" x 5") sold

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Now you are thinking: "Wait a minute, this is not a pastry painting."  True.  But isn't a chocolate-dipped strawberry the ultimate health food?  All the badness is gone; what's left is the pure goodness--fresh fruit and dark chocolate!

"Chocolate Strawberry" is the sixteenth of my February challenge paintings.  Only four more to go!  If you want to win a painting from my "Pastry Pleasure" series at the end of the month, please sign in to follow my blog.  Thanks!

"Fruit Tartlet" (oil on linen; 4" x 5") sold

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I have become a connoisseur of pastry.  I haunt bakeries these days. I've noticed that there are many styles of fruit tarts, but they all seem to feature strawberries and blueberries, I guess, for their punchy colors. The fruits are often glazed with a gooey transparent glaze for protection.  Yum....

If you want to win a painting from my "Pastry Pleasure" series at the end of the month, please sign in to follow my blog. Thanks!

"Mardi Gras Cupcake" (oil on linen; 7" x 5") sold

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What I learned from my February Challenge of "Pastry Pleasure" so far is that the best job in the world is the pastry chef.  I mean who is having more fun: the artist who painted this sassy cupcake or the pastry chef who designed it?

If you want to win a painting at the end of the month, please sign in to follow my blog. Thanks!

HAPPY MARDI GRAS!

"Sexy Donut" (oil on linen; 4" x 5") sold

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Can you resist this sexy donut?  I couldn't.

If you want to win a painting at the end of the month, please sign in to follow my blog. Thanks!

"Key Lime Tartlet" (oil on linen; 4" x 5") sold

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This key lime tartlet was so small that it could go straight into a mouth.  Doesn't the raspberry look like a red flower in a green field?

If you want to win a painting at the end of the month, please sign in to follow my blog.  Thanks!

"Mini Fruit Tart" (oil on linen; 4" x 5") sold

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A mini tart loaded with a fruit salad of strawberry, blueberries, grape, kiwi, and orange.  Which fruit is your favorite?  By the way, the dull sheen of the highlights was caused by the transparent glaze on the tart.  Yummy.

By the way, the name of this month's challenge is "Pastry Pleasure."  If you want to win a painting at the end of the month, please sign in to follow my blog.  Thanks!

"Lemon Tart Love" (oil on linen; 4" x 5") sold

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Some people don't like the orange color.  To me, it's like a burst of sunshine.  Put a mini lemon tart on a yellow orange fabric.  Look at the blue purple shadow.  I am about to swoon!

In case you missed my blog yesterday, I am going to repeat my goal for February.  It is to paint 20 small pastry paintings, five a week.  At the end of the month, I want to create another collage like the one I did for the January paintings.  So please follow my blog to see if I live up to my promise.  Hopefully my blog will hit 40,000 pageviews by the end of the month so that I can give away one of my delicious food paintings.

In order to be eligible for my painting giveaways, you have to follow my blog.  Thanks!

"Pink Cupcake" (oil on linen; 5" x 4")

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As always is the case with the second painting of a series, this painting of a cupcake with pink icing went faster than the one I did yesterday.  Doesn't it look looser and yummier?

"Pink Icing" (oil, 5" x 4") sold

"Pink Icing" (oil on linen; 5" x 4") sold

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I don't usually paint as small as 4 x 5", but as I had so much fun painting Kisses, I decided to do a series of small food paintings.  The cupcake with pink icing is my second subject.  I bought a package of six cupcakes--three with pink icing, the other three with blue icing.  Somehow the blue ones didn't grab me, so I kept the pink cupcakes to paint and allowed my family to eat the rest right away.  There is something about the pink color which brings out the little girls in many of us.  It makes us happy!

The moment I started painting, I knew I set myself up for a challenge.  It was a lot harder to paint the icing or  the grooves in the paper than the foil wrap or the paper strips of the Kisses.  But who said that painting was all fun and games?  It took almost two hours to finish this small painting!  I am going to work on one more of the same subject, this time with sprinkles.

"Happiness of Donuts" (oil on canvas; 12" x 16")

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Still life setup

I don't eat donuts.  Well, I eat them occasionally, but they are on the "forbidden food" list, which provokes guilt whenever I do.  I suspect that many of us are like me: I love donuts, but my waist line and cholesterol level cannot afford them. 

Last night, John Murray, my still life teacher at the Art League School, brought donuts as still life prop.  Smiles spread on our faces because we knew donuts meant good time.  Two students produced two terrific paintings; others, including myself, also did a decent job with our donut paintings.

On the way home, I thought about what happened in class and realized something important.  If you paint things that make you happy, you are more likely to be involved in the act of painting.  If the objects are enjoyed by many, you are more likely to sell them too!

"Royal Donut" (oil on linen; 6" x 8")

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Is this how the royals are served a donut--in a silver compote?  By the way, the donut disappeared mysteriously soon after my daughter came home from school.  Luckily I was almost done with the painting!

"Autumn Colors" (oil on linen; 8" x 6") sold

"Autumn Colors"
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Still life setup

A good thing about painting still lifes is that I have a complete control over the subject matter and lighting.  If I choose fruits and vegetables, I get to eat them afterwards.  Flowers will adorn my house after posing for me as long as they are long-lasting kinds.  I learned the tricky business of painting fickle flowers hard way last year, when I tried to paint pink parrot tulips from my garden.  I ended up finishing the largish painting from a photograph, which I think negated the purpose of painting a still life from life!

"Pink Parrot Tulips" (oil, 20" x 16")
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So the yellow mum, a very long-lasting flower, was a wise choice for a still life of autumn colors.  The small Hubbard pumpkin with the most enchanting pinkish orange color alone would have made a painting, but in order to make it more companionable, I also picked up delicious, multi-colored, cherry tomatoes.  How about getting all the "ingredients" for my painting at a grocery store! 

The gold ribbon was added for a graceful flow between the foreground tomatoes and the background mum.  I cannot believe that I managed to paint this rather ambitious arrangement in such a small canvas!

"Donut Break" (oil on stretched canvas; 12" x 16")

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Still life setup for "Doughnut Break"

"Blueberry Pie Party" (oil, 12" x 16")
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Last Thursday night, I was giddy with happiness.  I will tell you why.  In one of the last classes of the winter term, my teacher, John Murry, set up two very different still lifes: one with a blueberry pie and the other with donuts.  I got stuck with the pie, candles, and red colander and had to struggle with the painting, wondering why anybody would put a colander on a celebratory spread.  The lucky group with the donuts had fun, all producing expressive, yummy-looking paintings.  I was sore.

I had forgotten about the experience, having sold the blueberry painting and all, until I saw what John had brought for the class--donuts and more donuts!  He bought so many that he said the lady employee at the donut shop looked at him funny.  Well, we behaved and didn't touch any.  There were other things to eat after all.  The teacher kindly baked a peach cobbler for the class; a student brought a big bottle of wine and crackers.  It was the last class of the school year.  We have learned and grown much thanks to John.  Time to party!

"Donut Break" painted itself, really.  When you are excited about the subject, the hand holding a brush seems to dance on the canvas.  Look at the difference between the donut painting and the blueberry pie one.  The old painting appears restrained, whereas the new painting is brimming with expressive strokes.  The former looks correct, while the latter looks happy.  Which party would you rather go to?  Which dessert looks more appealing to you?  A donut, anyone?

"Still Life with Yellow Sand Pail" (oil on canvas; 14" x 18") sold

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Still life setup

Last Thursday evening, my still-life teacher, John Murray, decided to make us do a one-color exercise, the color of choice being yellow.  Since it is one of my favorite colors, I was initially happy with the day's challenge.  Unfortunately, I soon felt my enthusiasm dissipate, as I couldn't figure out what colors were the shadow side of the yellow bucket (I loved it though!), lemons, golden delicious apple, or bananas.

If you can name a color, you can mix it.  If it simply looks like a dull, darker version of the color in the light, you are in trouble.  Oy!  John eventually came around to the rescue.  He helped me with the bucket, which was giving me the most trouble.  The class turned out to be an exercise in humility.  I was perhaps becoming too confident as I breezed through the two previous classes.  John's mantra is: "paint as if you have never painted before."  Yes, sir!  I will do that from now on.