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Still a work in progress, this is another still life of fruit born our of frustration for ideas. Another trip to the grocery story and viola!, subject matter. I want to add a design element to the border, but have not yet determined what that would be so, it just hangs in my kitchen unfinished. I'm really happy with the bananas. I added the green border later a few months after finishing the painting as a background for a decorative border mainly because the bananas we just there in the middle sitting, with not much excitement. The border adds tension with the bananas overlapping and makes the bananas pop of the canvas for added dimension. II had a thought today, if I don't believe in my talent as a painter, then no one will. From hence forth, I'll give myself more praise as I critic these works. One day I'll repost with the finished product. The paining is 12x12.
After the session with my instructor concentrating on exercises, we're back to painting our own subjects. One of the hardest things for me at the beginning of my painting was finding subjects that interested me. I would find myself ill prepared when class started and I would have no idea what to paint. In this case, I took a trip to the grocery store before class started and found my subject matter. It's great to paint from life, and it's classical subject matter. I happen to love paintings with pears. I'm always drawn to them for the color and shape. One lesson I kept in my head when painting these pears was to to exaggerate. While it's hard to tell exactly what I'm exaggerating, the shapes of the pears were just that. It really doesn't work so much. I like this painting at the time. The color is off on the photo, it's actually more purple than blue and I liked the play of color and painting the folds in the fabric. Unfortunately, the pears aren't that interesting in form and color. They're too perfect and they don't have that characteristic of what makes a pear so interesting and that's the variety of color and variation in form and texture. These just got a bit too simplified for my taste. At the time I was pleased with them. Just another lesson learned along the journey. It's from failure that we finally succeed. This measures 12" x 12" and is a fun size to paint by the way.
Another exercise which I actually completed in one sitting. What a bonus for me considering some of my first paintings took weeks and weeks. The assignment was to paint using the complementary color of the actual color. Kind of a cool effect. The painting is from a photo I took in Chicago on a fall day. Notice the Sears tower? I visit this trip in a painting later on, and now that I'm looking at this painting again after all this time, there are some similarities it the use of brush work and color. Perhaps these exercises were useful. Hopefully, I'll update this blog more often so the 2nd Chicago painting will see the light of day before I'm in a home. Painting makes me happy! It's like procreating without the trouble. Little pieces of me to go into the world... more likely the trash. LOL. Notice: I'm very behind in my progress. This trip was in 2005 and I probably painted it around that time. I would love to go live one day! I get much better, but you'll just have to wait and see!
My teacher decided to switch things around on us and offer a different class to teach us more of the elements of painting. Instead of working on your on subjects for as long as we deemed necessary, we instead had to do an assignment that should be finished in one class. Each assignment was geared around a certain principle. I completed 2 of the assignments, the rest remained unfinished. While I found the lessons useful, it wasn't as much fun for me. If I was painting everyday, I could see how these exercises would be useful. But for us who only paint as a hobby, they almost feel useless! Did I say that? This painting was about plains and angles. We took a photo and broke it down into shapes. I've forgotten how exactly we did this, must have use of color. Can you tell what it is? If you can, perhaps I'll send you a prize!
