Little Jar of Jam

It is strawberry season and time for jam making! I think this might have worked better as a painting if I would have had a separation between the strawberries and the jar, but I do like the dark blue background. And at the end of the day - I still have the jam to critique!

What's my style?

The primary goal of this blog and personal Painting-a-day challenge was to paint enough to begin to find my painting style. That has not happened yet, but I believe and know that I will discover it much easier painting every day than if I painted here and there.  My last three paintings together show a little bit of a style... but who knows, I could really be a hyper-realist at heart!

Four Olives

Using the same technique as the last three paintings I ended up with these olives looking very painterly. I enjoy this type of painting at least some of the time. It is more enjoyable than the fine detail I get myself into sometimes. Definitely going to try more of this.

Green Olives in Red Dish

Green Olives anyone?Well, I still had a great deal of red paint on my palette so this dish looked inviting! I used the same technique again... palette knife and my fingers and the result -- especially the shading is pleasant to look at I think. I am going to try the same technique again.

On the Vine

I had created value strings of my red to paint the red truck, so with all that red staring at me I had to find something red.. ah.. yes! Tomatoes! This style was an experiment and I used a knife and my fingers again. I like the way it turned out all free and flowy.

Old Red

Another dailypaintworks challenge. Click here to see the challenge. I really enjoyed painting this truck. I think the shading is good and the proportions are pretty close to real looking - which is something I struggle with. 

Roni's Favorite

This animal is my sister Roni's favorite! Except for the eye, I used a palette knife and my fingers to paint this one which gave it a great looseness just like lamb wool! This was a challenge on the dailypaintworks site. To see the other artist interpretations of the challenge click here.

Love is in the Pear

I have a bad reflection in this photo of the painting because the background is a very rich black. I like the shadows and highlights and the form of these two love pairs. : ) I used a different style this painting and am pretty happy with the look of this style.

Run

This abstract could have had smoother transitions especially at the top but the colors are wonderful together. Why the title "Run" you ask? No clue. It is just the word that came with the feeling when I finished it.

Monet in Oil

I guess I must like this Monet painting... here it is again in oil. Liking it more than the others but still finding taking something large and making it super small is hard.

Deb's Favorite

My sister Deb loved hummingbirds so I thought of her a lot while I painted this. Felt good. I like the glass with the nectar in it and the bottom of the copper bowl, but I struggled with that copper flower on the feeder and I am still not happy with it. The lighting on the little bird is realistic and works. My husband took this photo a few years ago -- such a great job capturing it. This one is for you Deb!

7.49 a pound.

This is not the season to be buying asparagus... so when you have it, don't just eat it, paint it too. The colors in this painting were luscious to mix and play with ... I think I used too white of a white for my highlighted areas and there is a strange reflected circle from my camera that is not part of the painting but... Good exercise for me and they were tasty too.

And the star of the show!

 I plucked this cute little radish from my garden and set it up for it's photo shoot... and after taking the photo somehow it reminds me of an old movie star photo. ...thus the title. The shadow was fun to do and the little root end turned out, well, root like... maybe the composition could have been a bit better by slanting less.? Maybe not, if it still wants to be Greta Garbo!