Sweet As Sugar

Earlier this week I found a fabulous silver tea set at a little neighborhood antique shop (and my neighborhood is out in the country).  I was looking for a piece of silver to use in a demo for our PaintingFriends group when we go back to Florida for a week of painting and fun this summer.  Since I'm doing a demo of crystal, I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone by adding a piece of silver to the composition as my artist friends also wanted a silver demo.  Unbelieveably, I found this fabulous ornate set...coffee pot, tea pot, cream and sugar...price $37.50.  That is a wonderful price for a set of props that we all think we need to collect for our setups.  I have a whole closet full of glass and crystal, and now I have some silver.   This sugar bowl  has not been polished, so I just painted what I saw...next time anything is used it'll be bright and shiny.  I love the way the reflections move in crystal and glass and silver as you don't really need to explain anything...just paint what you see.  One thing...I did paint myself out of the reflection that was caught with my camera...didn't want to paint myself.

Monochromatic Exercise

Here is a little fun exercise I did yesterday for a challenge on PaintingFriends...a monochromatic painting using just one color.  I chose DS phalo blue and sorta cheated in that I just used one of the poppies I'd finished painting for another challenge.  Seems like we're always doing something on that forum.  It's funny how you see things easier when you've already painting a particular subject once.  I did have to think about what I was doing a bit more than my usual spontaneous way of painting in that the values must be done carefully and the glazes must be done on completely dry previous washes so they won't lift and turn grainy.  The yellow tint there on the left is my camera acting up.   This was fun.  Now...I really must get back to that crystal decantur...

Poppies

Here's the finished painting of my poppy challenge for PaintingFriends.  This was lots of fun as my palette was really limited, and I don't paint florals very much (I can probably count the number on my right hand...ha) so this was a switch from the crystal decantur that I've got to get back to now.  These poppies...along with some gorgeous red peony poppies...are near 4'-5' tall this season...and the larkspur in several colors are even taller.  Our winter rains really made all the difference.  As you can see, I've taken artistic liberties with the centers of these poppies, as they're really solid green at this stage, but I couldn't help adding a bit of interesting color.  Just wish they lasted as cut flowers...

Poppy Challenge WIP

I was hoping to get finished today at art retreat, but seems like something always gets in the way...like giggling and talking and girl talk stuff so maybe tomorrow will be the day.  My idea is to finish the bottom poppy and then see what I need to do in the way of balancing values and colors in the greens and background.  Don't want to kill too many of the whites until I see how glaring they are and deciding just how much I want to tone it down a notch.  I find that leaving lots of whites here and there is becoming a habit with me, but you can always kill them.  Gosh...sure hate to kill whites...

Poppy Challenge WIP

Well, I have 2 WIP's going right now.  On my forum, www.paintingfriends.com, I put up a challenge to paint some of the gorgeous poppies that are blooming in my yard right now, and since I put the challenge up I need to paint it myself.  I posted 2 photos of different poppies and combined the drawings into a quarter sheet.  Added some unopened buds and a seed head and leaves to the composition.  I'm especially having fun with the centers of these beauties.  You are welcome to take a look at the challenge and join in if you'd like.

I'll try to finish up today so I can get back to my crystal decantur and that one finished up also...

Red Wine and Cherries WIP

Since we had a going away party for one of our artists who's moving to Venice, Florida next week, I didn't get too far with my painting today. I did play with some colors for a dark background and tried to use a mix of all the colors I have going in the painting. Now I've got to do some tweaking here and there and I'll get more done tomorrow...at least that's what I'm telling myself. My first thoughts for this painting was to have an analogous palette and I'm trying to stay somewhat with that. Still haven't decided on a table top or table cloth, but there's plenty of room yet. I'll probably crop that left side in to run the bowl off the page so there won't be much in the way of tabletop decisions hopefully...and then...if I like what "happens" I may leave it as a full painting. We'll see what happens.

Red Wine and Cherries WIP

Here's where I stopped today. I haven't worked on this painting for the past two weeks...it's an early spring in Texas and all my flowerbeds were calling my name. It's a real shame that we have to sleep at night when there are so many wonderful things to get done.

Anyway, I've stopped here after introducing some blue into the stopper facets because I really need to decided on my dark background there on either side of the bowl before going any further. I was laying in different reds in the bowl to start on the fan facet, but decided I'd better work the darkest darks first. It's been rather challenging coming up with reds and purple/burgundy colors that don't fight each other. Started to throw the crystal on the gray side, but opted for soft blues instead as I'm thinking of a Midnight Blue kind of background to get some really dramatic darks in. It'll also make the blues more pale as the contract will be greater. Haven't decided on the cloth yet, but there's plenty of time for that.