The initial setup of this still life was so bright and juicy, it really looked like a vacation at the beach. Cocktails on the shore. Fruity drinks at a resort.

I was trying to recreate some of the colored water magic from ‘Pink Lemonade’ but I’m not sure that it exactly worked out the way I wanted this time.

I think the colors got a little muddy, and I don’t think I got all the contrasts just right either…

However, I do still like it! On to the next one! 

These become less daunting everytime I make one. It’s like magic…who knew? Regular practice is quite freeing!

Here is a little digital sketch from tonight. This one is based off my daughter, who went into a deep and long conversation with her teddy bear the other day. And I just had to capture the moment! These fleeting moments are so precious...I will capture more!

It has a lot more elements than I usually add into a piece. I'm trying to get into putting my characters in context more often. I also really like the color palette of the lemons from yesterday and wanted to create something else with similar colors. I just love bright colors! Anyway, still needs a bit of work, but it's a good start :)

I’ve been itching to create a composition with colored water reflections for a long time. I keep trying it, it doesn’t always work. I move objects around for what seems like forever until I usually give up.

This time though, for some reason, it kind of fell into place almost right away.

I think that maybe the reason this works is because the colored water is secondary to the main subject.

The most saturated colors remain the lemons, the subjects, with the second brightest color serving as a contrast to the subjects. I think I’m still liking there really boxy compositions too. 

What do you think?

Bosc pears have such a rich brown color, this was alot of fun to experiment with! The shape was also quite fun to paint, I've mostly painted apples so far which have a pretty predictable shape.

I thought these apples had such a nice brilliant color, I just wanted to try to replicate! And setting them against a blue background just made them pop! I also found this bowl at a local grocery store and when I put them together, they just complimented each other to well. It's so satisfying when paintings fall into place, we all know how much effort it takes!

I am back from a long hiatus. For this painting I was inspired by a beautiful green bottle. I loved the play of light it created and the resulting color palette is quite interesting. Stylisticallly, it's also a bit of a departure from what I usually do, but it's interesting notheless.