Painting 14

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.