Not big enough bowl

We're off on the ferry to Ireland tonight, so I wanted to squeeze in one last painting. I think it will be a while before I get the chance again. The apples I bought for travelling have been subjected to an hour in the (very hot ) spotlight.

Darn damn and blast, I like my apples, I even like my bowl, I hate that horrid knife. I may well be tempted to paint over it when we come back. Is that cheating??

I'll miss painting.

Jam jar

We're off on hol back to Ireland tomorrow, so the fridge and fruit bowl are all a bit bare. The ( quite past it) apple seemed to be the only thing in the house, apart from potatoes.I faffed about for ages with different different dishes, spoons etc, and then , for some unknown reason , picked the most complicated jam jar I could lay my hands on.

The idea with the jar was to indicate a jar in a few clever brushstrokes, a la Carol Marine, who seems to be able to indicate glass just using a few perfectly placed swipes of the brush. It didn't work out that way, a few swipes, looked, well, like a few swipes. So I spent an absolute age on fiddling and faffing. The result isn't at all what I was aiming for, but, I'm not unchuffed with it. I may even be a teeny bit pleased. 

There is so so much every time to think about, so much that you have to get right or it's wrong. if it's not composition, its brush strokes, or shadows, or line, or colour, or edges..... sigh.

Three cherries who lack purpose in life

I wanted to paint cherries, so bought some yesterday. All got eaten by the food hoovers that are my children, but I left strict instructions to leave me four. I got left three.

The paint is a bit looser than lately, and I like the idea of that. There are more highlights than cherry going on though. Mostly I reckon it suffers from the dullest composition ever. Aimless, clueless non involved cherries hanging around for no purpose whatsoever. It's hard to care about them. They may as well be eaten.

Not quite done

I have a cute ( but non functioning egg timer) which I thought might be nice to put with a egg.

Not a terribly successful idea as it turned out. To many things wrong, spoon handle, shadow, but most of all, non interesting treatment of the main, up front, right there in your face egg. I stared and stared, but couldn't see any fab highlights, or interesting colour changes. If it was so dull looking,  I should have put the egg in the background and made the little hen timer the star. Ah well, maybe her day will come. And maybe when it does, I might manage to make it look like she is not floating :-/

Helen's Red Onions

A friend dropped in a few red onions and new potatoes from her allotment yesterday. The onions were just gorgeous things, rich and shiny. I had to try and paint them. The spuds will be boiled, not immortalised in paint.

Well, the right onion looks okay, the stalk bit is wierd though. And lo and behold, the bowl isn't quite as wobbly as usual. I think there's a small gleam of improvement going on these days. I'm sure I can knock that on the head.

Glass of Cherry

I tried something new today, swopping my usual textured oil painting paper, for a smooth board. I don't know what they are really, are they called art board? Anyway...

It's odd now, I hated the painting experience, but  not necessarily the painting. It was very different to paint on, I thought it would be smoother  and therefore easier to gaily swirl paint around on, but it got a bit dry and sticky feeling. Sometimes, instead of paint going on, it sort of scraped off. Wierd. Anyway, it ended up less loose and swirly and more figity. But hey ho, live and learn, next time don't nick art equipment from husband.

Peppers reflection

I thought those nice little peppers deserved a bit better than to be shoved up the back of the last picture, so even though I'm supposed to be cutting the hedge, I really wanted to try them again.

I'm not sure I properly looked at this when I plopped it in front of me, if I did, I'd have panicked at the thought of all those reflections etc. But actually, I'm actually quite pleased with this, I actually like it! is that a first? Yes, I know it has flaws , but I'm a bit chuffed with this, and  a bit shocked! ( The shock is manifesting itself in a strange desire to use the work 'actually' too many times). Right,  I best go do the darned hedge.

Paul's Peppers

We found a jar of Cherry Peppers in a 99p shop in Petersfield this weekend. 99p shops are wierd, because you realise you don't know the price of so many things normally, so therefore don't know if 99p is a bargain or not. We made lots of  'savings' by buying things we'd not normally buy anyway... who needs four packs of coloured chalk? But the peppers are beautiful, looking.

I have no idea why I painted them small and up in the corner, perhaps subconsciously I was trying to shuffle the saucer off the page so I didn't have to deal with it. I like the purplegrey shadows.

bananas

Yipee, not a pepper. First time trying bananas. Non shiny fruit and veg don't have that nice little highlight thing that helps give a lift to a pic, so I let a nectarine hang out in the background.

I wasn't at all brave enough making the dark front bits of the bananas darker, so I went back and faffed, which is always asking for trouble. Also, I should have made the difference between the green wall and blue floor a bit more obvious. Also, to be utterly honest, the green wall wasn't that shade of green at all at all, but I couldn't mix the right colour. But, I don't mind the nectarine. Funnily enough, I sort of ignored the nectarine and just did it with a few quick swipes, instead concentrating on the bananas. It looks like the few quick swipes approach may have been the better one.

Fork 'n' pepper.

I've decided I don't like goddam peppers. It's still bitty . The fork could be worse. Could be better. But could be worse.

On the upside, it's better than yesterdays pepper. I don't like approximately 87% of the brushstrokes on the pepper. I like trying though, it's strange that it's rewarding even when the results are so weak. Today I painted while listening to 'The making of music' , a history of classical music. There is a little track, of a bit of a mass by a Renaissance composer Josquin Desprez, and when I hear it , tears well up. It's the strangest thing. Not the best thing when you are attempting to squint at a pepper it has to be said, but a moving weird experience.

shot glass

I wanted to see if I could do a glass, I like these little shot glasses, and I'm not horrified by the result. By the pepper yes, but I don't mind the glass, even though I think the elipse is wrong and the shape is wrong, I think I've got the idea of a glass, ish.

I'm more than underwhelmed by the pepper, god, it's so bitty, brush strokes all over the place. Also, there is no proper dark. I need a) to be braver and b) to light the subject better. Yes, I think I'll blame the lighting.