"Three and One"

I wasn't thrilled with this painting this morning, but I like it better now. It reads better than I thought it did when I was working on it. This was a good exercise for me.

"Little Red"

I decided to post a few paintings out there today. I didn't do them all today, but I have done them or touched them up since starting this blog. Each of the pears below is 4x6 and I have them framed and hanging on my wall in the same order you see them. It is a nice little grouping.

"Studio"

Woops. A little sideways. I'm feeling a little sideways today. Its about time to clean my studio.

"Natalie"

I was really in the mood to paint a person today. I ran out of time (meaning my kids woke up) because I messed around with the face too much, but I think there is a nice gesture here. The skirt is kind of fun.

"Yellow on Plaid"

I got up early enough today that I decided to work on a big beach painting I'm doing. This painting was sort of an afterthought since I needed a break from the other one. I didn't have high expectations for this. As I was working on this I could almost hear my dad telling me not to mess around-- I had terrible lighting since one of my lamps tipped over and went out the other day; I was using a terrible brush, all my apples floating around the studio are getting old and mushy, and I knew my kids were going to wake up any second. Considering the circumstances, I thought this one turned out ok.

"New York Sky"

This summer I went with my family to Palmyra, New York. This scene was inspired from that trip. I also went to a gallery reception where the featured artist was doing simple landscape paintings that had square skies. I started this painting a few months ago, but got bogged down with the middle ground. I like this painting much better this morning that I did before, but I may clean it up a tiny bit. I primarily used a palette knife.

"Ripening of the Last Tomatoes"

My friend Mindie saved these garden tomatoes for me to paint because they were so fun.

"Old Friends"

I'll get a better picture tomorrow, but I really love how this one turned out. It is so nice when a piece comes together without getting overworked.

"Three's a Crowd"

Fun painting. The pear on the left kept falling down while I was painting it, so I had to prop it up eventually.

"Terra Cotta"

You westerners might appreciate the fascination I had with seeing bright green moss growing in the wood grain. In most places I've lived, there's no such thing as moss- unless it is on the top of a pond.

"Standing Out Above the Crowd"

I recently did a painting of a flower field that I absolutely loved. I used the palette knife a lot in that one, so this was sort of an experiment in control with the palette knife.

So I'm figuring out the blog stuff. I posted three paintings today, but I really have been finishing a painting every day this week. The bucket of apples that I finished Monday night was one I'd been working on for a few days. I consider this being on a roll.

"Yellow Apple on Colorful Fabric"

This was one of our beautiful crispin apples from the pumpkin patch. Its been sitting in my studio as inspiration for a couple of weeks, so I finally decided to shine a light on it and paint it.