Yet more chillies

I'm back studying and cant seem to find the time to try and paint at all, but these three chillies came in the veg box yesterday, and they were such great colours and shapes, that I figured I had to give them a go. Anyway, my eyes are killing me, I needed a break.

I feel so so so out of practice, I'll never improve if I keep forgeting everything. I enjoyed doing this though, although I stoopidly ruined a jumper by lazily not changing and then sort of hugging the palette! duh.

Quick Quinces

I desperatly wanted to paint something sort of seasonal, seeing as how everything is turning and changing so I went out and picked two quinces from where they grow at the back of the garage. They are such a fab golden yellow , they just say Autumn to me.
No one here is very enthusiastic when I cook them for some reason .

  I like the colours, and I sort of like some of the brushstrokes, but I've lost the shape of the quince and have no idea what is going on with the shadows.

It seems they are fated to be neither cooked nor painted well by me.

orangeness

There are great tomatoes around at the moment. I keep buying them because the look so tempting. Usually I go for little ones, but I couldn't resist this great big orange monster.

I was all excited about attempting all that glorious colour, but I'm not quite so excited about the results. I find it  hard to distinguish what I see, from what I think I should see. I could see a funny highlight/reflection things on the veg, but couldn't quite believe there were bright spots where I thought there should be dark spots, and I couldn't quite figure out what colour they should be. As a result I fudged and faffed and fluffed about. Once you start doing that your doomed. I think things have to be captured in one take or things get murky.

Also, attempting any sort of reflection carry-on was asking for trouble.

little cartoon chillies

Some cute daft looking chillies arrived and I was only too happy to try and paint them. I've had a few 'crumple up and chuck in the bin ' failures so was getting a bit despondant. I tried to paint some lovely pears and couldn't for the life of me get the colour right, and I had a go at a red pepper that only lasted moments (the effort that is, not the pepper). Cute daft bright cheery chillies were just what I needed.

The chillies had a cartoonish quality about them. So does the pic I think, not that I did that cleverly on purpose or anything. I don't mind this, I'm happy with the colour, and some of the shadows. Unfortunately the chilli out front is is my least favourite, I'd like it to shuffle off down the back.

daylilly

I love Daylillies, each bloom only lasts a day, but the plant keeps on producing and producing, it's like they put on a big triumphant happy smile each day. I've got them in shade and in sun, in yellow and in deep red, I do nothing to them and they just keep on coming. Great plant. I'm also a sucker for these little candle holders, they're only  cheapy things from Homebase, but I think they are rather lovely.

This took a bit more time than usual, it necessitated  lots and lots of staring. Do artists all have wrinkly eyes from squinting? Anyway, I thought the glass was too wonky, and it isn't as simple as I'd like. Paul and the kids were quite complimentary though , even my uncommunicative  lump of teenager son who notices nothing said nice stuff, so I'll quit complaining.

wooden apple

Finally, a bit of time , and no nice fruit or veg  in the house! One floppy head of celery in the fridge didn't really appeal, so wooden apples it is then.

I'm actually chuffed at the one dark streak on the front of the red apple, as it is fairly dark and therefore a bit brave for me. The bottom of the green apple is terribly flat, goddamit.

very red pepper

The whole dark/light/tone squinting thing is still troublesome. As is the pink spoon!

plum toms

Finally, a chance to try again, it's been an age since I've found time to do this.

There are so many things wrong with it , I'm not going to bother. I seem to be cleverly managing to do the exact opposite of progressing ! But I loved doing it, and there are about two brush strokes that I quite like.

lonely plum

This was supposed to be a pic of the plums again, but those darned daughters ate the things, hence one lonely plum.

As the plum was sitting on the ledge for days, I had plenty of time to stare at the thing and decide how to paint it in a few simple strokes. I was all confident and well prepared. Well so  much for that. As usual, the few simple strokes turned into a confused muddle. I quite like the colour though.

plums

Ho hum, another attempt. My head was hurting from studying, so I took time out to do something more enjoyable. I saw the plums and couldn't resist buying them as the colours were gorgeously deep and delicious.

I've been getting worse rather than better at this whole caper, and figure there was a great dose of beginners luck at the start. Things have gone a lot muckier and duller, so I wanted to try and get some good rich colour going. I don't mind it too much; the knife is dead wrong, and I'd love the plums to be in fewer , bolder, more positive strokes, but I don't hate it.

The colour here is so so different to the actual pic, it's wierd that.

kohlrabi

It's been an age since I've manage to try and paint anything, we went off for our hols, but I brought my study stuff rather than the paint stuff, then I had a ferocious assignment. I was all excited about trying again, but it wore off pretty soon!

A kohlrabi  arrived in the veg box, they are pretty weird looking for veg, and I'm sure could look cool if painted well. Unfortunately, I went wrong all over the place. Picking a background that merged into rather than enhanced the veg wasn't too bright. I also got utterly lost amoung the leaves and stalks, impatient rather than accurate drawing. Also, no matter how much I squinted, I couldn't really find enough shadow/contrast to make it come to life. Strangely, even though I dislike the results, I still really enjoy the attempt.

wonky bowl and wonky plate

 I've had spare time today and yesterday and I had great hopes at really getting stuck in and coming up with something good. It's great not having to take everything out/put it all away again, to be able to take a couple of hours and hack away at this. The results are disapointing though.

My little bowl of tomatoes is dead wonky, and dull, and lifeless.

My plate of egg, freshly laid this morning btw, is also wobbly, and grubby and scrubby, and not at all fresh and quick. Erg, the more I look at it, the more that egg white looks like a horrid glob of mucus! I suppose I thought improvement might happen easily, but now I think I'm going backwards. All a bit dispiriting, well, unless of course the world is crying out for a good mucus painter.

Aubergines

Aubergines are another absolute fave food, and oily, garlicky unctuous dishes such as imam bayildi or tumbet would definitely be on my top ten dishes for when you are stranded on a desert island with fab ingredients and a excellent cooker, some great knives.....

I have no idea why I put these on a pink background. The one on the right is okayish, the other is too bitty, but then if I look again, the one on the right is too stripey and the other one looks better. Okay, they are both flawed. If I concentrate on dark/light, I lose the colour, if I look at the colour, I lose the shape, it's bloody tricky, and I'm only attempting to do someting simple, not a great big complicated affair. I shall go off and introduce these two to an obscene amount of oil and garlic now.

global chilli

I'm aware that I am avoiding items that have a definite shape and playing safe. So here we go, a knife. I figure it is flatter and therefore easier than cups/jugs/jars etc.

Well, it' not fab, but it's not disastrous I don't think. I have a problem with shadows, I've no idea what there are supposed to be made up of . Paul gave me some good advice re the colour of the item being in the shadow, but I obviously haven't taken it in. The chilli looks like a green slug, but, in my defense, maybe it looks really really like a great green slug and I've captured it perfectly! Ahem.

you are what you eat.

Today I stayed with the chilli/lime theme and did my profile pic. There was no way I was going to be able to do an actual self portrait, so hell, might as well be silly.

ingredients

Two of my current favourite ingredients. Well, even though that is true, I also cheated a bit; ginger should have been in here but I didn't figure it would look good. Also, there are other times when potatoes or something equally dull looking are my fave ingredient, and I probably won't paint them. I should look out for nice aubergines though.

I stoopidly put these on a plate, and then immediately lost the shape of the thing. I don't mind my lime actually, and the bottom chilli has it's moments. This was done in extreme haste as I was just back from a horrid two hour dentist session and was getting sorer and sorer as the numbness wore off.

curry for dinner

I popped over to the local veg shop and came back with a huge leafy bunch of coriander, a juicy hand of ginger, shiny green limes and long deep red chillies- I love that, a big bag of ZING -  I'm more and more interested in cooking limey/zesty/fiery/fresh food these days.

The chillies were crying out to be painted, and I'm not utterly disapointed with the result. I like parts of this, and am cross about other parts.  It's amazing how just one little brush stroke can either make things right, or make bits fail. I suppose that's part of the challenge. I'm still loving trying though.

spring and sun and daffs

Glorious sunny spring day, did hours of gardening. The few daffodils I have looked beautiful in half sun, half shade, so I murdered two and brought them inside.

I knew once I started attempting things that need to be drawn properly that things would go very wrong, et voila! The bottle and perspective, and curves and straight lines, and all that are wrong, but... I kinda like this. I'll call  it naive. It took me absolutly ages to try and get blues sorted a bit. An environmental crimes worth of paper plates was used up in the effort.

Back to peppers

I don't know why I went back to peppers, I think I was doing better with the tomatoes.

This seems to me to be a step backwards. The brushstrokes aren't strong enough. I had problems with the light: the painting was taped onto the kitchen cupboard, but there wasn't enought light on it. I wasn't really able to see the colours properly, and therefore kept chopping and changing, hence the busy scrubbiness. Well, that's my excuse anyway.

Tomatoes two

The first of the Isle of Wight tomatoes are in, I think the tomatoes we have eaten for the last few months have all been from Sicily and Spain, so it's nice for some reason to see the first English ones.

Well the tomatoes may be deep , dark , and delicious looking, but this is dull dull dull. On one hand I'm still quite thrilled that any of these pics arent entirely disgustingly ghastly, but... on the other... 

I'm disappointed at the sludgy green/grey/godknowswhat background colour. The tomatoes are I suppose tomatoey, but a bit bitty. I can be very hesitant about where to put what brushstroke, I think it shows. Big confident boldness would be so much better. 

Early days , ho hum.

Onwards and upwards - tomatoes!

The peppers had given their all, but luckily some nice big toms arrived in the veg box. The process seems to be the same each time: huge excitement and anticipation, followed by muddled , dejected middle, followed by attempt to retrieve seemingly lost cause.

 I'm sort of pleased with this! I'd go so far as saying I like it. They do manage to look like apples with tomato tops though. The colour here is a bit different than the real thing, actually, all these pics look better on the screen than in real life. I need to work on tone, I can't seem to decide what should be how dark, if that makes sense. I also need to know how to mix good dark darks.

Again,  an hour and a half, but too much of that is faffing: looking for bits, taping things onto kitchen cupboards, finding the lamp. I've missed lunch again and am famished, maybe I should eat the stuff rather than paint it.

Attempt no.4

 Today was  1) the day I got my own paints instead of borrowing, ( first oil paints ever, v. exciting!)  and 2) the day I started this blog. The blog I suppose is an attempt at incentivising myself. Hopefully things will progress, and maybe looking back will make me aware of this and spur me on . Of course, things may go nowhere, but I shall optimistically believe otherwise for the mo.

Oh it's all so tricky. I think I thought things would go better quicker. Again, there are bits that I like, and bits I'm disapointed with: The stalks are bad, I've lost the shape of the bulbous bits at the top of the peppers, some of the background is sludgy . Hell, at least they look like peppers.

This took 1hour 25 min start to finish, i.e, getting out stuff, painting, and then tidying away. It's not easy to find an hour and a half; lunch, which I love and look forward to, was a miserable snatch of a bit of scone. Oh the life of a painter is a story of  hardship and deprivation!

The peppers may have had enough, they are flagging, I think we'll eat them tonight.

Attempt no.3

My husband Paul  took an interest in an Americal painter, Carol Marine, who does small, daily  still lifes. This is what sparked this interest, little still lifes hadn't occured to me before. I can try and fit them into the day. Her work is beautiful, simple, direct, painterly : inspiring and depressing in equal quantities.

I'll stick to the peppers for a few days, see if it's a good way to learn from mistakes.

Hmm, this is a bit okay here and there, but is bitty, blodgy and too white too. I stood up today, much better idea!

Attempt no 2.

Part of the reason that learning to paint with oils seems possible now, is that I'm going to try still life, and I'm going to try small. I've watercoloured before, but only life drawing, and there is a disapointing lack of naked people draped around my kitchen most days, so that's out. My attempts at w/colour landscapes were cringeworthy and I had no idea how to redress that. Also, takes too much time/effort/weather/ etc to go find and sit in front of  the outdoors.

Still life however is accessible, and fit-in-able. Peppers; look good, nice colour, shape doesn't take as much skill as somethings, i.e. it may not be noticible when it's not right.

I'm actually quite chuffed!! It's not what I am aiming for, but it isn't a total horror. I like the background colours, and I like the  shadow colour, although, it doesn't work as a shadow: the pepper is floating. I knelt on the floor doing it, both legs died.

Considering that is the first time ever ever I've painted with oils, I like the feel of it.