Getting ready for curry night.

The ingredients are beginning to look lovely, I love a fridge full of fresh green healthy looking stuff.

I'm much happier with these chillies, especially the two at the back which I think work with fairly few brushstrokes. This is my first time painting a leaf. I really enjoyed doing this, there was a lovely scent of lime, and things went okay.

 

 

Chillies for curry

We seem to have gone from a vague notion we ought to have people around sometime, to having about 15 coming for curry on Saturday. Oops.  Many chillies purchased. Much beer bought.

This is okay from across the room, quite far across, with a squint! Some bits worked, but I got a bit bogged down in colours and reflections, and faffed too much with the shadows, and the second chilli on the left is a bit horrid!

Rosehips to the rescue

After a miserable morning painting where I managed to make a chrisp white china jug look like an invading alien smudge monster, I didn't want to give up defeated. I should have gone in and got some serious studying done, but instead I went and  found some pretty rosehips in the garden

That went better, nearly well enough to offset study guilt. Ther was a much nicer reflection going on in the shadows than I managed to capture.

 

Row of spring onions

Bought for a spanakopita, these onions had there lives ( temporarily) saved;  their lovely colours meant they were diverted from kitchen chopping board to garage .( Still feels a little pretentious to call it a studio).

I wanted to try and simplify the brushstrokes and not smudge everything. I thought they ended up a bit cartoonish, but Paul liked them, so I'll go with his opinion on this one.

skittles

Paul suggested trying the skittles.

Nice subject matter, but the detail and funny perspective meant I worked on it for too long and lost any sense of fresh fun colour. It seems hard not to make blue and yellow turn to murk.

 

Study books for my next university module have arrived, soon garage/studio time will be hard to find.

coloured glass

I ran about the house looking for something what wasn't a little white dish and brought a selection of stuff out to the garage. It's the third time I have met the postman en route. I had a lamp under my arm, and a tray with a vase, serving spoons, scissors, tea light holders, chillies, a global knife, glass medicine bottles and an aubergine. He is beginning to give me funny looks.

This, for me , was mightily hard. It even too an age to draw it. It must be the longest it ever took me to paint anything & I've now developed a  permanently furrowed brow ! I'm actually quite pleased with this, yes, there are problems, but I found it a huge challenge, and think, in the main, I didn't do too badly.

Last try for present

I thought I'd give those bowls one more try, although, I've rather had it with them. I think the shapes and complication are a bit tricky for me. In an attempt to simplify, I've only painted two.

I think that might do. It's better than the others I reckon, and some of the cherries work okay. Bowl persective and underside of bowls is a bit shakey, but it's a bit fresh and colourful at least.

I need to get away from bowls, and from blue and green backgrounds, and try something else.

Annies bowls again

Oops, worse not better, the looming bat pic may well be the present after all.

The bowls are much better I think, less worked and sludgy. That background is vile though! Why on earth did I use that colour. A nice crisp blue would have been much nicer, I think I thought I was overdoing the blue lately though.

The practice is good though, and extremely enjoyable, and I didn't despair so much over the new paints today.

Clever sister

I wanted to paint a pic as a pressie for my clever sister Annie, who has just had her shop voted one of the 12 best in Ireland by the Irish Times Newspaper!!! She got first into the best 50, which was good enough, but then got down to the last 12.  The shop is  called butterslip, and years ago when she began, I bought these little dishes from her ( And didn't get a  family discount!).

Bits worked, but I don't feel it's present material, I'll see if I can do better. Why doesn't that shadow at the back seem flat? it's like a bat looming over the strawberries!

Mom's spoon

I'm still struggling with these darned paints and have binned a few attempts in frustration. I'm either dragging sticky stuff unwillingly across the paper, or I make it too 'watery' and lose any brushstrokes. I'm also wierdly finding that the colour I mix on the palette changes on the paper, that didn't happen with the cheap paints. I can only imagine it's something to do with reflection or something as the new paints are shinier.

I can't blame the paints for the fact I seem to paint the front and the inside of the spoon, as if I'm looking both on and in. Good lesson on keeping your eyes in the same place.

Proper paints!

I got real paints! As in, I bought proper artists oils. So far I have been using student stuff (Winsor and Newton Winton range) which I have to say, I have really enjoyed using. For some reason, I figured having the real thing would be much better.

 

What I didn't at all expect, was for it all to be harder! The paints were so different to use, thicker and stickier, and therefore I had to add medium, and dip into things, and have to think about a whole heap of new stuff like consistency.  I had envisioned buttery beautifulness, paint swirling on sublimly, masterpieces miraculously appearing effortlessly from the brush. ( Okay, I exagerate). I feel I have a whole new learning experience to go through! Bummer.

 

This set up was entirely to try out the colours and see if they were okay. The Yellow I bought is too orange... and at this price!!! .

Crab Apples.

The only problem about being out in the garage is the lack of decent subject matter. I can't seem to get excited about rusty saws, bits of wire, or dead cans of paint. After frustratingly wasting heaps of time trying to arrange bits, I ended up rather desperatly running around the  garden looking for something that looked nice and wouldn't wilt under the spotlight. Crab apples seemed to fit the bill.

After wasting so much time I rushed this, not really expecting anything to happen, and definitely expecting to mess up the scissors. Funnily enough, I quite like the result. It's looser and therefore a bit more alive. The moral must be to carelessly dash things off in a hurry!

Compositionally it could be stronger, the is a lot of blue in the top that I didn't quite know what to do with.