After painting that cauliflower a few days ago, I started regretting that my collector had selected my dinky mushrooms as part of her four-veggie series for the kitchen. I decided to do a more ‘fulsome’ substitute for her consideration — celery! Here it is. She’s happily taking it instead of the ‘shrooms!
Celery. Watercolor and gouache on paper. 11″ x 14″
Celery Painting and Subject.
For my next painting I decided to channel friend Helen Gallagher with some BIG flowers, painted from life from a bouquet a friend sent me for Mother’s Day. Haven’t ever done any large scale, straight-on flowers. I don’t think I captured the color of the shadows very well. I’m also not crazy about the composition, but it was a good experiment. I used the palette knife a fair amount, but not for everything. . . .
I painted from life rather than the photo below — which I snapped to record what I was generally looking at while painting.
Yellow Lilies. Oil on Primed Arches Oil Paper. 8×10.
Reference Photo
One of my collectors has bought three of the veggie watercolors I painted last year as a consequence of a workshop with Wendy Artin. And she wants a fourth so she can group them in her kitchen. What to do? A pretty cauliflower was in our fridge so this is how I spent my evening in front of the TV. . . .
I made a few mistakes since I was painting it direct — without a pencil sketch, as Wendy had taught. So I resorted to a bit of gouache so I wouldn’t have to start over!!
One of my grandsons and I harvested some flag irises from the garden on Sunday to decorate our Mother’s Day table. I decided to paint those from life for my Monday painting. I didn’t like the outcome – especially the background, which was pretty awful, so I tweaked it later in the day — and then tweaked it again today!! I’m including the first and second ‘drafts’, which illustrate my changes in scale as I reworked the thing.
#9 Flag Irises. Oil on Primed Arches Oil Paper. 8″x10″.
#9 Irises from the Garden. Oil on Primed Arches Oil Paper. 8×10
Initial Composition
We flew to California for Christmas this year and, as usual, I occupied myself at the airports and in-air by some iPad doodling. Thought it would be fun to share some of those from this and earlier flights with you.
I squeezed in a few iPad paintings over the Christmas holiday. My favorite is this sketch of son Sam and grandson Max relaxing over a new book. I shared on Facebook & will add again below the little scribble I did of Max’s lego creation made from a complex (5 bag) set on Christmas Day. He only called for adult help once or twice in the multi-hour endeavor. Way to go, Max!
Sam & Max Reading. Original iPad Painting. 2017
Max’s Christmas Production. Original iPad painting. 2017.