More apples

Here it is again after a little more work. I'm still very excited.

Apples on a plate 9" x 12"

I'm very excited about this piece. This picture is after the first session only, and the paint appears fairly transparent. I'm working some more on it right now and have been able to deepen the colors and opacity.

Ewer again

Well, I reshot this painting and am deleting the previous entry. This photo more closely represents the colors in the painting. And I have finished this piece. I got a good build up of paint on the surface of the piece and am beginning to work differently. I am excited about laying colors down without blending them together...I can't really be more articulate than that right now. Take a close up look and you'll see what I mean.

Ewer 2

Here is the new still life after a little work. There's not much of a change, except that more of the canvas is filled in with the first layer of paint.

Here too are a couple pictures of where I work on all these paintings.

Ewer 18" x 14"

I took a break from the portrait for a little white on white still life. I'll probably keep working on both at the same time.

I think it's going really well today. I loosened up and reintroduced the "mark" into the surface of the face. I also stopped worrying about the background (and the composition). Who cares?..

Earlier today I walked to the library and checked out their only book on painter Lucian Freud where I read a good quote. "If I'm putting someone in a picture, I like to feel that they've fallen asleep there or they've elbowed their way in. That way, they are there not to make the picture easy on the eye or more pleasant, but they are occupying the space of the picture and I am recording them.' Composition, in other words, is never more important to a painting than the subject. 'In my case the sort of odd ease and calm of a composed picture could take some of the life out of it...One of the things in Stanley Spencer I'm so conscious of is his composition'('Shall we put this there?')...I felt that the way I put things looked awkward, in the way that life looks awkward."

Just an updated photo of my painting. It's proving challenging, and I'm a little frustrated; but I am going to keep going.