This was not an easy painting to paint. After all of my dark paintings, I actually struggled with this one a little to keep it from looking flat. I realize that the issue came from having a too well-lit reference so I ended up having to really exaggerate the highlights and shadows to create…
Category: Still Life
30 in 30 Inspired Challenge Complete
The original plan was to paint these paintings in 30 days, but I didn’t for two main reasons. 1. I suck at painting alla prima, and 2. I fell in love with my subjects and wanted to do them justice. So I decided to finish one painting a week, which sounded a lot more…
The Complete Artichoke Trio
I’m pleased to announce the completed artichoke trio. Painting artichokes is a lot of fun, and by fun, I mean work. But people love them, so I will probably paint a few more eventually. For now though, I’m going to stop at 3. Two of the three have already sold. If you have your…
The Long Awaited Second Artichoke
Well, I told you I’d paint more artichokes eventually, and here they are. For whatever reason, people seem to absolutely love the artichokes. Maybe it’s because the hearts are so tedious to paint. Getting all of those thin lines perfectly shaded is a serious pain, but worth it. The first artichoke sold before I started…
The Complete Yellow Onion Series
Here it is, the complete yellow onion series! While I did really enjoy painting these onions, I’m also really glad I’m done for now. I’ve discovered that yellow onions are hardly yellow at all. There was far more pink and orange than I expected. The completion of the onions is also one giant step…
The Last Yellow Onion
I’m relieved to be done with onions for the moment as this set of 9 onions is now finished. They’re really interesting to paint and far more colorful than I expected. Though, at times I was thoroughly annoyed with all of those colors. For instance, this one has pink, orange, yellow, brown, and purple…
8th Yellow Onion Finished
For some reason, I thought it was Tuesday all day today. I very leisurely varnished this painting and set it aside to dry. Then tonight as I put the kids to bed, realized that it was in fact Thursday and I hadn’t taken any photos or written a blog post.Total fail. Better late than…
Conquering the Ugly Stage of Painting
Sometimes a painting is just horrible. This one was particularly bad right up until the moment it wasn’t. Funny how that works. I had to remind myself over and over that it would eventually start to look better if I just kept working. It had a particularly bad case of ugly that I just…
The 6th Yellow Onion
This my be my favorite onion to date. It has so many colors happening in it. It may be that I just love a good transformation. I seriously hated this painting to begin with. It was a cartoon circus onion when I was just starting it out, but the more I worked on it,…
Fifth Yellow Onion Finished
The transparency in the back half of this onion is by far my favorite part. I just love it. This was a sneaker-painting. Meaning, it was done before I realized it. I love it when that happens. I probably only worked on it a couple times and when I sat down to finish it,…
Artichoke Still Life Commission Completed
This is the first of several artichoke still lifes I have planned to finish up my 30 small still life series. I haven’t yet decided how many of these I will paint. Either 3 or 6, but based on interest so far it might be more rather than less. I also haven’t decided if…
Fourth Yellow Onion & Why I Decided to Stop Using Alizarin Crimson
There isn’t much to say about this painting. It’s the 4th of 9 yellow onion paintings I’m working on. It didn’t give me much trouble, but most of my paintings lately haven’t. I think I’ve officially reached a point where I can quickly and easily knock out a small still life painting. That can…