Blog Moved

I moved this blog to here.

Going Bananas

I painted a bunch of ripe bananas today. Tried to go back to basics, and paint masses of color, so i desperately tried not to think "banana" while i painted. I was only partly successful in that. Composition wise, i should have moved the bananas more to the left so that i had more room to play with the shadows. So here is #7 in my quest to improve my alla prima skills and ready myself for plein air painting.

Number Six

When i first did this one, i really liked it. Now i'm not so sure. Now i see all those things that i didn't succeed in rendering. But part of the reason i first like it was the somewhat abstract quality. Well, go figure.

Vegies for a Change

Yes, i switched from fruit to veggies for this fifth painting.

Not sure what i think about this painting. I guess i'll have to wait a couple of days and look at it again. Right now i am uncomfortable with it, but don't know why. It has an unfinished quality, but that's not necessarily bad. It does seem a bit simplistic, but then i've been told that its not good to explain everything, that you should leave something for the viewer to finish. Anyway, just for comparison here is a photo of the still life.

PS I wonder if the painting is what my teacher calls "symbolic", that is painting what you think you see instead of what you see?

Back to Fruit for Number Four

Decided to set up my still life this time with just the three pieces of fruit. I figure that i'm having enough trouble learning all prima painting that i don't need to jump right into more difficult subjects. Besides, this is only number four.

And this is what i came up with. I didn't succeed in putting down paint and leaving it alone. More blending this time, less painterly. In some ways i feel better about this one that my previous efforts, but i also feel like i'm losing something. I'll have to reread Kevin MacPhersons books to see if i can absorb some more pointers on technique.

I did extend my limited pallette. To the Cadmium Yellow Light, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue and Titanium White i added Cadmiun Red Light, Thalo Green, and Chromatic Black. I use very little of the Chromatic Black, so i don't think i can blame the addition of it to my more subdued colors.

Number Three

Continuing in my Paint 100 Challenge, here is number three. It took me a while to settle on the still life objects and their composition. I added and subtracted a tea kettle and a tea canister, and ended up just with the pot and mug.

After all that, i ended up spending less than an hour and a half painting before running out of steem. So endurance is another thing that i'll have to build up before taking on plein air subjects. My major error this time was not completing the painting of the pot before adding the detail of the pattern on the pot. Therefore, the whole shadow side of the pot is too light. Drawing errors crept in too; the mug is too narrow compared to the reference. And i didn't manage to get in the brightness of the reflections in the mug. I am not producing masterpieces, but i sure hope that the lessons learned from these studies will make my paintings better by the end of the one hundred. Another of those errors is to step back sooner-- maybe that will allow me to correct some drawing errors sooner.

Second Painting

Well, here's my second of the one hundred. Took me two hours, including making sketches before i started to paint. The drawing is better than the first one. Matching colors is something i have to work on. The kiwi should be a lighter green, and the reflected light in the shadow of the cut apple is too light. The highlight on the whole apple disappeared at some point.

No photo of the still life. I ate it.