In the Spotlight

This is a piece I painted, and repainted, and repainted--trying to get the glow on the center apple and have the two side apples be supports to the center of interest without overpowering it.  I think I finally succeeded with that idea after a lot of looking and tweaking.  The center apple is also basically the same one I used for the watercolor in an earlier post, which I had done as preliminary work for this piece.  I still want to go back and do the solo apple in oiil and hopefully, I'll get to that.  I also find I like working in this long format for a change and hope to find more subjects that fit the space. 

Falling in love

Red Apple-A Second Look--Sometimes I think painting is like falling in love.  You create this artwork and just love it.  And then with a little time to really study it--well, you see a few flaws or maybe something you can make a little better.  So you don't throw away the painting, you try to make adjustments and see if it'll work.  I think that most of the time there's a really good chance that it will make the whole better.

So I really loved my first pass at this painting and then thought--hmm,  a darker background could be really nice.  Let's try it!  I was pleased with the increased contrast and made a fairly good transition between the old background, new background, and the foreground shadows.  Always tricky in watercolor (or love!)  Would love your comments. 

Painting process--continued

Like most of us in the northeast, I'm thinking SPRING!  I had some photos from a set up I had done last Spring and never painted, so I did some cropping to come up with this charcoal sketch.  I'm a little unresolved as to what the background will be--light or dark--my photo source was light.  I may do another sketch or perhaps a color study to work that out.  This is what I like about the "painting process"--giving myself permission to try different things and just see how they work  without worrying about producing a "perfect" product.  I'm sure many artists can appreciate and associate with that feeling. 

Red Apple

This is a watercolor interpretation of my previous charcoal sketch.  I thought it would be fun to see how intense I could get the colors in watercolor, rather than oil, which is what I usually use for this type of subject matter.  The watercolor is definitely a much more indirect approach, with layering to build up the color.  This was a great exercise--I usually do watercolor with a wet into wet approach, so this made me work on the layering process. 

Painting process

This is a charcoal sketch I've done today in preparation for a new painting.  It will be a small painting, 6 x 6, and I may expand to a larger size in another similar composition.  I've done a few small pencil sketches above the drawing to look at options for this composition.  Charcoal is fun to use because you can really create dimension with it--now the challenge is to carry that over into paint! 

"On The Vine"