Maple Saplings

This week Ann Feldman posted a challenge to paint a fall theme.  This little painting is of  Red Maple saplings that grow inobtrusivly along roadways and woodlots and come into their glory for a few days in autumn.  What a joy to be out of doors on a beautiful fall afternoon painting - heaven on earth.

Pigs

My entry for this weeks Daily Paintworks Challenge,

Chicken on the Run - San Miguel

My entry for the Daily Paintworks Challenge this week. Carol Marine posted a photograph of a chicken and the challenge was to either paint her photograph or choose an image of your choice. Marina and I had fun with her pictures of chickens from San Miguel that she took when she was in Mexico with Frank Gardiner on a workshop.

Teapot - after Kora

This little painting was done at Marina's house last week, the teapot has a lovely highly reflective surface that was challenging to paint. The reference to Kora is because the painting is based on one of her small paintings. The name of her blog is "Small Paintings by Kora Fried", she is an excellent painter and I came across her site by following the links from one of her paintings in the Daily Paintworks Challenge. Check out her blog, she has some wonderful paintings posted.

White Bowl - White Challenge

This is my entry for the Daily Paintworks Challenge of last week, a white object on a patterned surface. It took me a few tries at this challenge to finally like one of my attempts. Marina and I did this one together at her studio on Wednesday afternoon.

Red Pepper

This week's challenge was from Carol Marine again, to paint each stroke with a new mixture of colour with a fairly wide brush. This is super hard as it is a slowish process and the mind wants to quickly charge ahead and proceed with the painting. I had some difficulty with control of the large brush over the tight spots at the head of the pepper but I reminded myself that this is an exercise to improve painting skills and not to be too attached to the result.

Zippo

The painting of the Zippo lighter is my entry into the weekly Daily Paintworks Challenge. This week Michael Naples presented a photograph of a Zippo lighter and instructions to use only two colours, Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine with white for the painting. It was a great process, thank you so much Michael for the challenge!

Pears on Pewter

This is the first painting that I have had time to paint since the 'rose' challange painting. I really liked how the colours of the pears reflected on the metal surface of the plate.

Red Chilli Peppers on Green

I enjoyed painting the previous piece so much that I decided to repeat the chillies on a contrasting background. I can't say that I am finished painting red chilli peppers.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - a study

I was enchanted with these red peppers when I saw them at the local grocery store and I knew I would be painting them.

Apple - a study

A single apple in a dark background.

Coffee Mugs

I've been hoarding my old coffee mugs for ages meaning to paint them when I had time. They are are wonderful subjects for improving drawing skills, setting up interesting compositions, working with proportions of values - all the things I need to work more on.

Granny Smith Apples - a study

I tried quite a few studies of this set up before I felt I was ready to post this one. The silver plate was tricky with the reflections of the apples and the pink polka dotted paper turning up in the most surprising places.

Poinsetta - a study

This was a really fun sketch done at Marina's on Saturday afternoon. The weather here is cold, thirty five below this morning when Phil went out to get the paper! It's painting indoors for a while now that winter has set in, which is fine with me. I will review the notes and exercises from Carol Marine's wonderful workshop in New York this summer and enjoy some still life painting.

Three Apples in a Black Bowl - SOLD

I used the previous study and the still life set up to create this painting. Because I had already painted the study and solved some of the problems this sketch went quite smoothly. It is painted on a piece of linen my husband streched and primed for me, the surface was wonderful to paint on.