Eggs without a name

I haven't figured out the title for this one. I seem drawn to eggs. Like Deidre from Wetcanvas said, "Eggs are the perfect shape."

The folks in the Still Life forum at the Wetcanvas forum are a talented and helpful bunch of artists.

I'm drawn to juxtapositions of warm and cool. The cool blue background against the creamy beige of the egg makes for a little energy and excitement.

This is 5x7 oil on canvas board.

New painting class and the dentist

Ah, here's what the dentist and a new 2 day painting class have done to me. It's totally wiped me out so I haven't had anything to post here.

The class though is run by Joseph Peller, he's an amazing artist and teacher. Next week I'll take some pictures of my WIP and share with you all.

Here's today's modest effort to get me back on track. I will never be able to think of eggs without thinking of Gollum getting the eggs riddle and yelling out 'Eggsses!' Well these are eggsses.

A slight change up - Painting everyday rather than a painting a day

I've had to rethink this. I'm getting into the subtleties of color in still life and its an area I'm rather new to.

This painting is actually the third rendition of this teacup. The first one - a 25 minute exercise was too saturated. Yesterday I experimented mixing colors. I changed my paints around and abandoned temporarily the limited primary palette. Using a variety of Williamsburg paints in a variety of earth colors, I did a quick brush sketch of just the cup against a dark background.

Today I went for the full painting which took about 50 minutes. So far, I'm pleased with how things are going. I'm still keeping the spirit of the quick paintings - not sitting down more than 25 minutes at a time and not doing more than 2 sessions for each painting. This may mean some days I don't have a post-worthy painting but when I do get one, it makes it all worthwhile.

Exploring the red spectrum

Well I think I'll have to re adjust my goal to paint 5 days out of 7 rather than all 7. Right now I'm still enjoying trying to capture the shadows and reflected light off of the many red objects I've found in my kitchen. Who knew I was such a 'red' person?

I'm also going to give myself an hour on these. For this last one, I wanted to correct the reflections after 30 minutes and ran out of time.

I think this whole process is a work in progress.

Tea Time

Was in the mood for a cup and thought it would be a fun subject. This is definitely getting me out of my comfort zone and into painting new things.

5"x7" oil on panel one hour

Another study of reflections

Some more kitchen utensils were calling to me to paint them. I wanted to include more cooling greens and greys to counterbalance the warm reds. All in all, a good, tough exercise.

25 minute study, Oil on 5"x7" panel

New Beginnings

Here starts my challenge of painting one painting each day. I will spend no more than 25 minutes on a painting and will post one each day to my blog. They will be small - 5x7.

What do i want to get out of it? They say there's nothing like doing something a lot to get better at it and I like to paint. I miss it. I get grumpy when I go without painting for too long.

Painting Nr. 1 is a study of reflections using some items I had around the house. I can tell my mixing bowl is going to figure prominently in future paintings. I just love the wonderful reflections it gives off.

My setup is a 5x7 pochade box from Guerilla Painter that I can sit on my living room table. Throwing out my TV gave me a wonderful spot to stage my still lifes - the TV stand - and with an adjustable reading light and two stand lamps, I am pleased so far with the lighting possibilities I can produce. I'm sure as time goes by, my setup and manner of working will evolve and I look forward to seeing how it will.