2 Fat Pears in a bowl

Today I am posting part of the painting process. I took the black W/c paper and sketched the outline of my drawing.  Next I did a value study  in whites and shades of blue to blue-black.. This is what it looks like at this stage.  Next stage I add color... matching the values but not paying attention to detail. Finally I finish off with the color & the details.

Oil on Water color paper  7x10

What's for Breakfast?

Well this tasty treat did not last long.

I want it said of me by those who knew me best,that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow. - Abraham Lincoln

Life is like a grapefruit. Well, it's sort of orangy-yellow and dimpled on the outside, wet and squidgy in the middle. It's got pips inside, too. Oh, and some people have a half a one for breakfast.  Douglas Adams

Because at some more flexible period he had advanced from oranges to grape-fruit he considered himself an epicure.  Sinclair Lewis, 'Main Street' (1920)

oil on canvas paper  5x7

An apple a day

I love apples... they taste good... they look good... and they are good for you.

Eating apples is good on so many levels. There's fiber in the skin that's really good for you. It helps with digestion and helps you absorb all the nutrients of everything you've eaten that day. Apples are a really good thing. Rebecca Romijn

Why not upset the apple cart? If you don't, the apples will rot anyway.

Frank A. Clark

I also eat fruit instead of drinking juices. That's something I've read up on. I think that if you drink a lot of fruit juice you take in way too much sugar. You'd be better off eating a bunch of strawberries or apples.

Kris Humphries

oil on canvas paper 6x8

Lemons and more lemons

These are fresh lemons... from my refridge and that "bubble" is actually a float for fisherman's nets.... and old one at that.... it's glass ... just a glass bubble now. My good friend, another artist, from Texas sent it too me. This is the first time I've painted it into a picture but it wouldn't be the last.... I'm just getting started.

When life gives you lemons, squeeze the juice on your fresh, wild salmon ... I said that. Here's what others say:

“When life gives you lemons, squirt someone in the eye.”  ― Cathy Guisewite

“When life gives you lemons, you don't make lemonade. You use the seeds to plant a whole orchard - an entire franchise! Or you could just stay on the Destiny Bus and drink lemonade someone else has made, from a can.”   ― Anthon St. Maarten

“when life gives you lemon, take it. don't waste food”   ― giselle marquez

oil on canvas paper  8x10

Pear Apple & a Pitcher

Can't seem to end it with the pears... I love pears. I have one left from the bag of organic bosc pears I bought at Costco. Maybe I'll pick up another bag Monday or Tuesday. Oh yea, the organic apple is also one I bought. I try to eat an apple a day.... don't always make it but I'm working on it.

Trying to get some mood and atmosphere in these paintings.... and be painterly.... that means broad brush strokes that show after the painting is finished. I keep working on it.

It is, in my view, the duty of an apple to be crisp and crunchable, but a pear should have such a texture as leads to silent consumption."Edward Bunyard, 'The Anatomy of Dessert' 

The pear is the grandfather of the apple, its poor relation, a fallen aristocrat, the man-at-arms of our domains, which once, in our humid land, lived lonely and lordly, preserving the memory of its prestige by its haughty comportment."
Francois Pierre de la Varenne

Oil on canvas Paper

8x10

Flaming Pear

I know that this looks like the other painting I did of a Riviera & a Mason Jar... I painted it again this time added a few things extra. The photo came out a little dark so the grape in the lower right is a little difficult to see. Heh heh ... but it's there. The background colors make it look like it's on fire... maybe it is.... a poached pear. :-)

Oil on canvas paper  8x10

Royal Riviera and a Mason Jar

Here is the Royal Riviera and a Mason jar with the upgrades

End of the box

Here are the last pears from the box.... yes I ate them all. So I painted a little more on this trying to incorporate Matt's suggestions. Looking better, eh?

Oil on canvas paper 6x8

Bosc standing

I bought a bag of these at cosco.... almost gone now...... this is a "refined" painting I did a while ago.
I think it looks better now.

Oil on canvas paper  6x8

Dish of Pears

Well only one pear fit in this dish... a LARGE pear. this is the latest version. Hope you like it.

Oil on canvas paper  6x8

One Green royal Riviera

Well they came in a box of 12 pears ... mostly green... but they did ripen up nicely so I go to eat them all. My photography is not all that good yet but I'm working on it. Some of the transparent colors seem to disappear but I think this is better than the first posting of this pear.

Bartlett Pear

My very tasty Bartlett pear. Couldn't wait to eat it. Delicious. I think I improved it a bit from the first one. What do you think?

Tomatoes again

I pulled out  several paintings after Matt 's critique and tried to improve them so I will post the "improved" paintings. Sometimes the changes will be very subtle and sometimes the changes will be very noticeable. I'll leave that part up to you.

Enjoy.

Oil on canvas paper 6x8

High Peaks

 Still thinking about Arizona.

Everyone in California lives on a white, sandy beach.” False. The only people who live on California beaches are vacationers from Arizona, Utah, and Nevada who own condos.
– Erma Bombeck

 You know you’re from Arizona when you drive two miles around a parking lot looking for a shady place – even in the dead of winter. – Author Unknown

 You know you’re from Arizona when you feed your chickens ice cubes to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs.  Author Unknown

Gotta go back

Well I left this one unfinished because I need to go back to Arizona. I love Arizona.

What most people don't understand is that UFOs are on a cosmic tourist route. That's why they're always seen in Arizona, Scotland, and New Mexico. Another thing to consider is that all three of those destinations are good places to play golf. So there's possibly some connection between aliens and golf. Alice Cooper

There's not a single person in Arizona today who would say the Grand Canyon was a mistake. Stewart Udall

Oil on canvas paper  8x10

Reminiscing

I had such a great time visiting the Grand Tetons in Idaho and Wyoming I had to go back .... just kidding... it was a mental "go back". Totally day dreaming and wandering back to the scenes of days gone by. Loved it anyway.

Theodore Roosevelt
"We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received, and each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune."

"We are prone to speak of the resources of this country as inexhaustible; this is not so."

"...wild flowers should be enjoyed unplucked where they grow."

"It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it."

"We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation."

"I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us."

"Nothing could be more lonely and nothing more beautiful than the view at nightfall across the prairies to these huge hill masses, when the lengthening shadows had at last merged into one and the faint after-glow of the red sunset filled the west."

There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness, that can reveal its mystery, its melancholy, and its charm."

"The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom."

Oil on canva paper 8x10

It's white today

Hope this is an indication of the Winter to come. A couple days after the Winter Solstice and we have a nice covering of snow down here in the valley.  I love Winter. Tomorrow the sun may come out.


And there is quite a different sort of conversation around a fire than there is in the shadow of a beech tree.... [F]our dry logs have in them all the circumstance necessary to a conversation of four or five hours, with chestnuts on the plate and a jug of wine between the legs. Yes, let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius. ~Pietro Aretino, translated from Italian


[W]hat a severe yet master artist old Winter is.... No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel. ~John Burroughs, "The Snow-Walkers," 1866


Winter is a time of promise because there is so little to do — or because you can now and then permit yourself the luxury of thinking so. ~Stanley Crawford, A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm, 1992


One kind word can warm three winter months. ~Japanese Proverb

Tomatoes from my garden again

My Grandson's wife told me that her mom pulled up the tomato plants at the end of the year and hung them indoors to ripen the last of the tomatoes that were hanging on the vine still green. Not having a barn or shed I hung them in the guest room which has a large South facing window which warms up the room nicely during the Winter. It works fine. I love tomatoes..... salad, soup or in a snadwhich... whatever.

I love judging food by its smell and feel and taste. The healthiest tomato isn't always the perfect one that's been covered in pesticides.

Sheherazade Goldsmith 

The federal government has sponsored research that has produced a tomato that is perfect in every respect, except that you can't eat it. We should make every effort to make sure this disease, often referred to as 'progress', doesn't spread. Andy Rooney

Oil on canva paper  5x7

The fishing shacks at Monterrrey

When you go down to the boardwalk at Monterrey this is one of the first things you will see.... it may be one of the most famous and most painted sites. It seems a little tilted... but then maybe I was on the down-slooped sidewalk.... maybe my head was leaning .... maybe I just goofed when painting this one. Well, there it is, the fishing shacks at Monterrey

Never stop doing little things for others. Sometimes those little things occupy the biggest part of their hearts.

California is a fine place to live - if you happen to be an orange. Fred Allen

Earlier today, Arnold Schwarzenegger criticized the California school system, calling it disastrous. Arnold says California's schools are so bad that its graduates are willing to vote for me. Conan O'Brien

oil on Canva paper 6x8

Meandering on the Beach

I just can't leave the Oregon beach. Just about every morning we were out there walking up and down... North and South. The view was always different because we wandered around at different times of the day but the sun always made long shadows about mid-morning because it had to rise above the hills to the East........ and it sometimes took a while to burn off the morning fog. There was always someone else running or walking or picking up sea shells.... and an occasional dog prancing about. So who can't feel good at the beach.

The weather and my mood have little connection. I have my foggy and my fine days within me; my prosperity or misfortune has little to do with the matter. Blaise Pascal

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. John Ruskin

oil on canva paper  8x10