Little Girl Leder

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This is a recent private commission. I worked from a photograph. For years,  I relied exclusively on photographs, but for the past two years, I have been working from life via still life setups and plein aire painting. It was remarkable to return to the photograph for this commission and feel the changes in the way I now paint. Photographs eliminate atmosphere and space. However, while painting this I found myself painting as if I could see the atmosphere and the space the way I can when observing directly from life. It was as if my mind remembered the way atmosphere and space would interplay with the little girl. I am happy with the result. More importantly, so are her parents!

Orange Slices

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I had so much fun with this one. It amazed me to observe how those oranges literally changed color in response to the colors I put around them in the reflections, the background and the foreground. It only underscores the importance of setting the color, saturation and temperature of the painting's focal point first and then moving on to painting other aspects of the piece in support of those initial choices.  Otherwise, you can just chase your tail!

Green Apple in Blue

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It has been a VERY slow painting start for me this new year, what with Christmas, and house guests, and colds and flu. So, today I HAD TO PAINT. I was like a wild woman dashing around the house trying to put together an interesting still life setup. All that I had in the way of fruit was this one green apple. I had a few decent sprigs left from a week old bouquet of flowers and my trusty blue bottle. I threw in some interesting shadows and reflections, and "wha la!" Happy and satisfied... the creative itch, scratched.

Sunburst Through Bottle

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I love when the sun bursts through glass. I love when the sun bursts through anything for that matter. So when it happened that the sun burst through the window just behind the still life I was in the middle of painting, I worked frantically to catch it. I abandoned the idea of the set up in a cool north light as I had been working it, and quickly added in the long blue shadows brought about by the sun. I stroked more yellow into the bottle and the sunlit top of the pears. Then, almost as fast as it came, the sun blast left. In spite of how rapidly I had worked, the painting was not finished. What to do? Like a patient wild game hunter, I decided to lay in wait at the same time the next day. With my paint brush in hand, I was ready when the sudden sunburst returned. It remained just long enough to capture its effect. Ahhh.