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

sold

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

sold

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!

"Summer Garden Harvest" (watercolor; 14" x 18") sold

sold

I have a small fruit garden that bears raspberries, blueberries, and sour cherries.  The raspberries posed for my still life one summer day, along with astilbe and tuberous begonia.  I donated the painting to the 2013 Patrons' Show at the Art League in Alexandria, VA, and it won an honorable mention!  Hooray!

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!

"Blueberry Smile" (oil on linen; 4" x 5") sold

sold

When I turned the mini fruit tart around, I saw three blueberries looking like smiling.  For a different look, I switched to a yellow orange fabric for the ground.  Which ground do you like better, orange or green?

"Mini Fruit Tart" (oil, 4" x 5")
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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

sold

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!

"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!

"Hydrangea and Baby's Breath" (oil on canvas; 16" x 12")

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Still life setup

Once a term we paint large-headed flowers in John Murray's still life class. As my teacher hates the ubiquitous sunflowers, we usually end up with spider mums.  Aagh!  On Thursday night, when I saw him bringing in a bouquet of gorgeous flowers, including hydrangea, my heart skipped a beat.  He also got some apples, which seem to be the theme of this fall.  But as practice makes perfect, I am no longer disturbed by apples.  Bring them on!

I initially misread the color temperature of the hydrangea and blue cloth in the shadow by making them too warm.  The mid-class critique put me back on the right path.  Wow!  John said that "Hydrangea and Baby's Breath" was the best painting I have ever done in his class.  Of course, I've heard him saying that several times before.  Either I am in an upward spiral course of artistic growth, or he is a terrific morale rouser!

"Red Still Life" (oil on linen; 8" x 12") sold

sold

As I had so much fun painting the shiny surface of the eggplants the other day, I thought I would go even further by throwing in a silver platter.  For the still life objects, I gathered three red produce--pomegranate, bell pepper, and red delicious apple.  "Antioxidant Fest" might have worked as the title of the painting too!

"Antique Teacup and Apples" (oil on linen; 12" x 12")

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Still life setup

Some days I can paint reasonably well; some other days, I can't paint at all.  Although it was only the third week of the term (I missed the first class), John Murray, who must have thought mighty high of our ability, arranged the above complicated setup last Thursday night!  It was awkward to paint just the elegant brass compote laden with red apples, or the dainty antique teacup and saucer, or the three fruits on the right.  Willy nilly, I ended up painting the entire setup despite my different intentions for this term.  Oy!

First of all, I couldn't mix the shadow colors of the apples, or any other colors for that matter.  I couldn't draw the teacup and saucer either.  The biggest problem was the composition.  The painting was so top-heavy that it was about to topple, figuratively speaking.  Eventually, John came to the rescue.  He worked on my painting for half an hour (!).  No, he didn't finish the painting for me; he showed me the way. 

Do you see how dark the teacup and light cloth are in the shadowed side?  How about the greens and purples in the apples!  When John first started putting down greens, blues, and what not into the apples, they looked like the poisoned apples the evil queen offered to Snow White.  "Apples for Snow White" was the first title I thought of for the painting!

On the following day I knocked down the shocking colors, while still maintaining the dark value in the shadows.  I worked on the painting to complete it, perhaps for three hours altogether, until the paints became too sticky.  What you don't know is that during the painting "session" I also went to my ice-skating lesson/practice and baked two batches of brownies for my daughter's marching band as well! 

A teacher once advised that one should not try to paint unless you have a block of painting time.  If I wait for such a block, I will probably paint two or three times a week instead of everyday.  I say PAINT WHENEVER YOU CAN!     

"Still Life with Watermelon" (oil on stretched canvas; 18" x 18")

"Still Life with Watermelon"
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Still life setup

"Watermelon, Carrots, and Red Onions" (oil, 11" x 14")
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Do you see similarities between my latest still life and the one right above, which I painted in the winter term?  Exactly same choices of fruit and vegetables!  Even the same burlap on the table.  Obviously, my teacher,  John Murray, really likes the combination of shapes and colors. 

Last Thursday evening, he put a swirl of a watermelon, onions, carrots, small pots, and kitchen towel on a low platform so that we could look down and paint.   Look closely. You will find a full spectrum of colors--red, white, blue, yellow, orange, green, and purple.  Aha!  That is what he was after. I must say that it is one delicious still life!

"Strawberry Pickers" (oil on stretched canvas; 16" x 20")

Reference photo

The scene is from Schlagel Farms in Charles County, MD, where I was picking strawberries with a friend in May last year. I looked up and noticed two young women; one was seriously trying to fill her flat while the other was daintily selecting the juiciest one at a time. I happened to have a camera with me and took a couple of shots.

As I am always intrigued by the concept of putting figures in a landscape, I was delighted with the above photo and went for it. I think I nailed the gesture of two women without getting too fussy.  The figures with their warm tones and bright clothing pop out against the sea of backlit, green strawberry leaves and the soft, hazy, purple trees in the background.  Can you feel the heat, humidity, and sun?  The strawberry season is just around the corner.  I can't wait!

"Watermelon, Carrots, and Red Onions" (oil on linen; 11" x 14")

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Still life setup

My teacher, John Murray, decided to shake things up this week.  He apparently thought we were becoming lazy!  He put the table in the middle of the room and began to pull out one thing after another from a grocery bag until he came up with the above setup.  He asked us whether we would like to have a cut honey dew as well.  We said no!  We were looking down at the whole mess of things against whatever happened to be across the room from where we were standing.  Some students couldn't even see the beautiful red onions; others had a lot of the crumpled kitchen towel to deal with.

As you can see in my painting, I cut much of the towel.  Clever me!  I had other problems, such as the delicate leafage of the carrots and the papery skins of the onions.  What stumped me the most, however, was the color temperature.  Somehow I painted it too warm as if I was painting in sunset.  I had to cool it down and more. 

Although the setup was mainly illuminated by the artificial yellow light, there was also the cool natural light filtering through the blinds from the windows.  Because of the double light sources, some highlights were warm and others, cool.  Fascinating.  I don't know for sure what caused the cast shadows of the onions to turn green, but I painted it as I saw.  The more I paint, the more I realize that painting is really an exercise in seeing.  The weekly still life painting class has been one of the most valuable learning experiences.  More to come next week.  Yeah!

The Fruits and Vegetables Journal (pen and watercolor; 9" x 4")

Today I am sharing the first page of my new journal--"Fruits and Vegetables."  A great thing about doing a journal on the produce is that I can eat my models after I am done with them.  I couldn't do that with flowers, although I once tried to eat a rose when I was a child.  It smelled so good, but tasted funny!

I took a picture of my simple supplies for the project--a watercolor box with gazillion colors, a brush, a Micron pen, a mechanical pencil, an eraser, plus a 9 x 4" piece of watercolor paper.  Do I need all those colors?  No.  I once bought and tried many unusual colors, whose names I don't even remember, so I might as well use them.  The brush comes with a reservoir that you can fill with water--quite handy when you are travelling.  I sometimes draw first with a pencil when the subject is complicated.  Pineapples qualifies as such, as anybody who had tried to draw them would testify.  I have never drawn a pineapple before; it was a fascinating exercise. 

After I inked over the pencil lines, they were erased.  Then I finished with several layers of watercolor wash to achieve the three-dimensionality of the fruit.  When I have a few more pages done as well as the cover designed, I will bring the whole thing (30 sheets altogether) to a local "Staples" for binding.

Now every time I go to a grocery store, I find myself lingering at the produce section.  Wow!  Look at the form of an artichoke!  Radishes!  Carrots with their delicate foliage!  Have you seen the Brussels sprout stalk?  There are so many wondrous things in Nature.  To really see something, one has to draw it. 

"Pears and Pebbles" (watercolor on Yupo; 9" x 12")

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This is one of the first paintings I did on a slick, synthetic support called Yupo.  Paints dry to jewel-like vivid colors because Yupo is not absorbent.  For the same reason, you can wipe off paints back to the original pure white of Yupo, as you can see on the cut surface of the pear in the center.  Fun!

Adding another layer of paint on the already dry part of the painting requires a gentle touch, since if you press the brush hard, you end up lifting off the first layer.  Oops.  Drawing with a graphite pencil also needs to be done with an uttermost care, because Yupo doesn't take paints where you erased the pencil lines.  Sounds like too much trouble?  Try Yupo if you haven't yet.  It's worth the effort.  The painting was juried into the Art League show in Alexandria, VA in 2000.