Eggplant Study in oil

Eggplant Study in oil/ oil on canvas board/ 6" x 6"/ sold

Here are two little end of summer vegetables from my garden.

I wanted to paint the eggplants with the looseness and texture that oil would allow. I wanted them painted against the warm hot background color that feels the heat they need to grow in the garden.

Tomatoes and Glass Jar

Tomatoes and Glass Jar/ watercolor/ 6" x 5.5"/ 

Another painting working on the water in the paper and the water in the brush. This style of painting, although it looks to be spontaneous, is a great daily challenge.

Plum Study #1 in oil

Plum Study/ oil on canvas board/ 6" x 6"/ sold

The object of today's study of plums in oil was to explore the difference in painting the same subject (plums) with the creamy texture of oils compared with the transparency and luminosity of  watercolor.

Sunlit Plums / watercolor/  (sold)

Coneflower Study

Coneflower Study/ watercolor/ 9" x 6"/ sold

Glass objects seem to be best represented by soft transparent edges. The colors that represent the glass are borrowed from their surroundings. Unlike the precise layers of yesterday's painting, this one is painted freely wet into wet.

Layered Iris

Layered Iris/ watercolor/ 6" x 7"/ sold

This small painting was created with thin veils of transparent color dried completely between each layer. This style of painting for me, makes a "tighter" painting. It requires more time and patience during the painting process itself. Most of the time, the reward is a painting that "glows" as the thin layers of paint allow the paper and the under layers to show through. In contrast, the larger amount of time for me with the "looser" more spontaneous-appearing  watercolors is in the tonal preparatory sketches that provide the "map" for the one shot paint application. There is also the time repainting the "spontaneous" paintings  that just don't work.

Onions and Peppers: An Example of "Successive Contrast" : How a Change in the Background Color Makes the Vegetables More Appealing

                                                                                                                                       

Onions and Peppers /watercolor/ 5.5" x 9"/

It is interesting to see this painting "before" (lower) and "after" (top) a change in the background color.

Increasing the intensity and saturation of the purple background makes the green onions appear greener.  This happens because of "successive contrast". Successive contrast occurs when the eye views colors in sequence (as your eye looks over a painting, one place to the next). As the eye views a color, it becomes "fatigued" and forms an "afterimage" in the eye.

The "afterimage" is  the complimentary color. This afterimage influences the other colors in the painting, especially in paintings with high contrast and saturated colors .

(repainted above)

In the repainted image above,  the after image of the more saturated purple (which would be its compliment, yellow) adds to the green color of the onions, so they now appear brighter green-yellow. The afterimage of the green (red) and the purple (yellow) increase the "red-orange" of the peppers. This is well described in Hilary Page's Book "Color Right From the Start".

What makes it muddy?

 These are three small sketches of this young golfer. Each one has a personality, mostly from the subject's pose. The freshest or cleanest one is the third one. The first and second have some areas of skin in shadow that appear muddier than I want. Each painting used the same pigments. These are the same colors I use for skin tones in paintings that look clean (see Feeling Antsy or Day for a Sundress). When colors are "muddy", I have been told that there is a problem in color temperature. In the third painting, I tried more warm tones in the shadows. Now, there is less muddiness, but also less definition.  Tomorrow, I will try these again, thinking again about color temperature.

 

Tastes like.....

watercolor/ 5.5" x 19.5"/ sold

Shel Silverstein's poem that uses different foods to create paints made me want to paint the "taste" of the pear today.







"We're out of paint so...
Let's paint a picture with our food.
For red we'll squeeze these cherries.
For purple let's splash grape juice on.
For blue we'll use blueberries...."
Shel Silverstein

Courage

watercolor/ 10" x 5"/ sold

When young people or children play sports, it seems to be an opportunity for an artist to capture them most unaware. The painting challenge then becomes translating their concentration, enthusiasm or movement into the composition.
The surrounding shapes and colors of this sketch were chosen to support this player's intensity.

"I have always considered tennis as a combat in an arena between two gladiators who have their racquets and their courage as their weapons." Yannick Noah

Orange Study

oil on canvas board/ 8" x 8"/ sold

I wanted to paint the "bounced color", the feeling of heat and keep the brush strokes disconnected.

Sunny Peppers

watercolor/ 5.25" x 8.75"/ $75
http://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/sue-churchgrant/sunny-peppers/85582

"Color must be felt before it can be seen" Harold Speed

I wanted to paint the heat of the sun on these beautiful peppers today.

Red Geraniums in Glass Jars

oil on canvas board/ 8" x 8" /sold

"It's through my artist's eyes that I see wonderful things in nature that I never saw before." Kathy Connelly

Sunlight, glass jars and summer's reddest geraniums....
Still working on my first "100 starts", but loving every moment of seeing with "my artist eyes".

Day For A Sundress

children/watercolor/ 8.5" x 5.5" / sold

Also inspired by A Closet Full of Shoes by Shel Silverstein.

 "party shoes with frills and bows"

These lovely shoes were bright red- pink with polka dots. The sunlight on her dress made the day more beautiful.

Getting Antsy

children/ watercolor/ 8" x 5" / sold

In the series of paintings inspired by Shel Silverstein's "Closet Full of Shoes" poem,
these would be some part of

"Shoes of shiney patent leather,

Shower clogs and ballet slippers.."

Better than her shoes, however, were the ways she filled up her time while her mother shopped.

Pools of Sunlight

still life/ watercolor/ 5" x 8" /Gifted

Also at the market, (while collecting "shoes"...)  the shine of the eggplants in the bright sunlight, seemed to call to be painted.

Market Onions

still life/ watercolor/ 5.5" x 8"/ sold

Found these while searching the market for "more shoes".

The visual compliments of yellow-green and purples make me feel the warmth of the sunlight.

Blue Clogs

children/ original watercolor / 8" x 5"/ sold

Second in a series of small paintings inspired by

A Closet Full of Shoes

by Shel Silverstein

Maybe these are "wooden clumps" or "shower clogs" .

This painting was about the bright sunlight and great plaid shorts! 

Pink Showers

children/ original watercolor / 8"x 5"/available at Low Country Gallery )(HH)

First in a series inspired by

A Closet Full Of Shoes
by Shel Silverstein

Party shoes with frills and bows,

Workin' shoes with steel toes,

Sneakers, flip-flops, and galoshes,

Boots to wear with macintoshes,

Brogans, oxfords, satin pumps,

Dancin' taps and wooden clumps,

Shoes for climbin', shoes for hikes,

Football cleats and baseball spikes,

Shoes of shiny patent leather,

Woolly shoes for winter weather,

Loafers, rough-outs, sandals spats, 
High heels, low heels, platforms, flats,

Mocassins and fins and flippers,

Shower clogs and ballet slippers...

A zillion shoes and just one missin'-

That's the one that matches this'n.