... and life goes on!

Didn't get a chance to paint today but I received an email from the new owner of ORANGE PEELED. It has arrived safely in Redlands CA (orange grove country) and it's happily hanging in their home.

It's always nice when people are nice enough to let you know the ongoing "life story" of your work. Most of the time, you send off a painting and you never hear about it again. These people are excited to have the painting and that is just the "cherry on the top"!

After working at Cactus Jack's today, I decided to take a few photos before coming home...

 

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a more artistic day. Paul made two 20 x 24 inch cradled wood panels that need to be gessoed and the beginning of a horse painting is on the easel.

Putting one foot ahead of the other and life goes on!

Day One... disappointing.

It was a difficult day at the easel. I thought I had a pretty good start on another horse portrait but when I stepped back and looked at it, the nice muzzle that I had captured was pointing wasn't at the correct angle and I had to wipe it out and redraw it.  It's almost back at the same stage it was in when I wiped it, but it definitely set me back!

Ah well, that's the way it goes sometimes.

I'll post the day's work even though I'm not really happy with it. It will be good to see a comparison when I get into it a little further.

Today was the kind of day when the paint felt really sticky and the colors were just evading me. Then I had to wipe out a large part of the face and start it over.  BAH! 

I'll look at it again tomorrow and hopefully the things that need to be corrected after I take my eyes off it for a while.

OLD OAK WITH FRUIT & REDBUD

I think it's finished!

I'll leave it overnight and if I still think it's finished, I'll sign it.
Redbuds went more easily than I thought they would. Flowers are usually very tricky but with some good reference material, it wasn't too bad.  This is a photo of it while still on the easel. I need to get a better photo under controlled conditions but this will have to do for now.

OLD OAK WITH FRUIT AND REDBUD   20x 24 inches   Oil on Cradled Wood Panel

OLD OAK WITH FRUIT & REDBUD -- WIP

DAY SIX

It's almost finished!  I spent all day today working on the fruit and the brass and I'm looking forward to finishing this one. It held all kinds of challenges but it's pretty much finished except for the redbud flowers and a little glazing on the brass.  

Detail of fruit

I'm now at the stage of a painting where part of my focus is looking at it critically and part of me is thinking about the next setup. I want to use the other side of the antique oak secretary and making a complementary composition to this painting. I'm wishing that we had dogwood trees around here. I think that would look great next to the redbuds.

OLD OAK WITH FRUIT AND REDBUD

DAY FIVE

Today I added the branch for the Redbud and next will be the flowers.  I've also worked on the baby pineapple leaves and the brass bowl. The brass bowl is a challenge as I said before. The color first looks orange, then brown & with another look it becomes green!

I took it as far as I could today.  Hopefully the parts I worked on today will have dried enough to work on them some more. Unfortunately, I worked a little backward today and it was hard not to smudge the areas that I just painted. My bad! Maybe I will remember that when I work on it next time.

ORANGE PEELED -- Update

ORANGE PEELED

20 x 16 inches

Oil on Wood Panel

SOLD
through the
Gallery Collection at La Posada de Santa Fe

Thank you Sara!

OLD OAK WITH FRUIT & REDBUD _ WIP

DAY FOUR

Another day of work on this painting and I've filled in the front of the secretary. I can see that I need to tone it down just a little but it's a pretty good representation of the carving.  It's just a bit too bright.

I also worked on the tall vase and I think it's probably pretty close to finished. Next I think I'll work on the brass dish holding the fruit. I find brass to be a very difficult metal to read...one minute it looks orange & the next it looks green! I'm making some progress on it at any rate.

DETAIL of vase

I'm afraid I'll have to buy some more grapes to use as models because these are starting to look more like raisins and the leaves on the pineapple are getting a little brown now.  I am glad that I took photos!

It's probably time to put in the redbud branch too. It's the key factor in tying the composition together.