Like Button

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Growing - Painting - Eating

Another Thing I've Never Painted
I've been trying to get out of my artist malaise
by trying new things and incorporating them in my art.
I've never really painted still life before.
I've painted vases of flowers, but to me if it doesn't have several different types of items in it
it's not really still life.
We grow a lot of produce my husband sells at the farmer's market in Carrollton
so I have access to a variety of fruits and vegetables.
I tried some peppers a few weeks ago and they were horrible.
We have an abundance of them, so I thought I'd give it another go,
but first I thought I'd draw them first.
Drawing is one of the things I'm trying to improve on,
so I laid them out on the table in what I thought was an interesting arrangement
and then I drew them and then I painted them.
  I drew the peppers and added some broken lines for the shadows and tried to get some highlights
on the peppers and then some shading and highlights on the stems.

Then I painted them trying to get the colors and the shadows to look like the real ones
and the drawing.

I was pretty happy with the result.
Then, I was able to use the peppers in my salsa.
Leave me a comment about what you think and how I could have improved it.
I always struggle with the background color.
 How do you select a background color?
Do you use a complementary color or what?
I always tone my boards with a mix of burnt sienna and white
and then I used ultramarine blue and white for the background.
I don't mix it very well so it has a streaked look 
and I paint it on the bias.
Thanks for stopping by today.

4 comments:

  1. Sharon, I think you did a good job with the peppers! You can put different colored paper or cloth behind them to see what color you want for your background and shadows. I'm sure your creative mind will creating fascinating combinations if you try still life for awhile! How are you feeling today?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Meredith. I was happy with them. I'm doing pretty well tonight. I slept most of the day because I wanted to go to a Town Hall meeting with my congressman tonight. I had it on my calendar for weeks and then I had to have this surgery. I told everyone, my goal was to go to this meeting tonight. Glad I went. I'm a little sore tonight, but nothing too bad. I took a shower today. Wooo Wooo!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Sharon, your peppers look fine to me! For backgrounds I mainly use neutrals, I find it easier and the focus is on the subject. You can mix nice cool and warm grays using cad red med, ultramarine blue, cad lemon and white. Sometimes I tone the board first but most times I paint on white. Good to know you are on the mend!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Karen. I had lots of fun working on these peppers and then using them in salsa. hehe! I'll try to remember your advice on the backgrounds. appreciate the info.
      I'm mending, but today's been a little rougher than the other days, but no where near having agall bladder attack.

      Delete

Receive my blog in your inbox

About Me

My photo
Ghent, Kentucky, United States
I'm a nature artist and I love to paint old barns, rivers and lakes, trees and fence rows and flowers. I work almost daily. You can purchase paintings by contacting me at slgraves6@gmail.com and there is also a tab across the top of my blog for available paintings and one for small paintings with buy now buttons. You can also purchase through my Etsy shop using the name of Fine Nature Art. . Thank you so much for stopping by.