Painting for pleasure

Our baby apple tree in September 2003

This little apples in a bowl painting is almost done. The nice
thing about writing the blog, is that my artist friends
write me and ask me questions about what I'm doing.
One question last week about gel medium made me
realize it was the answer to this painting. I added some gel
to my apple green, and a smidgen of white, which thickened it
enough to stop the rough watercolour feeling I was getting
with the green.

Starting the painting

Working on the bowl and more detail

How do I like them apples? Now I like them.

Green Apples in a Bowl
acrylic on canvas
7" x 9"
For Sale

It's been a rainy day, making it easy to do just about
nothing. We watched Dana Carvey on HBO, and sat on
the back porch loving the rain and feeling happy
about having a covered deck (a porch). A few
other houses in the neighbourhood have porches
too, and you could hear those people having fun.
Everyone else was enjoying summer inside today.

I worked on my painting tonight, and expect to
paint most of the day tomorrow. But I'd really
like some sun, because rainy pavement is risky for
people on crutches and I want to go outside -- right
outside

Have a walking-proud day.

How do you like them apples?

Not to bore you with the apple theme, but once again I worked
on my little apple painting. Steven and I went up to Seneca College
in King City today and the drive was lovely. In places wildflowers
bordered the road, in whites, mauves and yellow. Outside a farmhouse
high pink hollyhocks stood in translucent beauty shot through with
sunlight.


Above you see how the apples (cooking not eating apples)
are supposed to look when they're ripe -- big and yellow.
One year the tree was so late flowering, that the fruit was late
and missed the demon worms. This year some of the fruit is
yellow, but most is about two days shy of this perfection,
and we're using it now.



Wonderful Caitlin, who used to help me out a lot in
the summer, has been over working for me tonight and
teaching me some new ideas about how to manage my blog.
Thanks to her anyone can now comment on my blog. So
please do. You no longer have to be a Blogger member to
comment.


I'll show you the next stage of the little apple painting
from yesterday, with some detail added in on the china.
I'm not finished yet, but I'll keep you up to date. I like the
bold shapes of the apples, and the leaf like a flag, contrasted
against the complicated pattern on the china

Have an enjoying-the-details day!

In the bag

A few weeks ago I was looking at the work of some wonderful
realist painters working on objects inside glass, and in lunch
bags. That Sunday I was attracted to apples in a plastic bag lying on the table when Steven and I were unpacking after our weekend shopping trip. I grabbed the bag and made off with it into the studio, promising to buy more, and began this little painting -- but I just couldn't get it to work.

I started the way I sometimes do with small paintings, drawing
with fine marker on a pre-painted ground. In this case the ground was orange for warmth. But the pen was
too harsh, the apples the wrong colour.

Tonight I went at it again, as a break from a formal portrait
I was working on, and it's almost done. I like the exuberance.
High realist it's not. And my friends who don't believe in
white will be certain there's too much of it. Maybe so,
and yet -- a bag of apples now and then is fun to paint.
What's the rule about the doctor. An apple a day?

Have a break the rules with passion day.