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.