not enough painting! :-(

Here's an unfinished effort last Monday, 10/23 that was. The white area in the middle is a porch on a house in Cape May. I wanted to try to "vignette" the edges, that is, not paint all the way out to the edges ... it's a little too blocky still, but I like the subject and will try it again.
The next effort, started yesterday, 10/30, and worked on a bit today, but also not done (I think) is this study of some dying branches of beachplums that I picked while walking Itchy. There're a few trees on an empty lot by the bay, and I find these milky orange-pink plums irresistible. Sadly, the last couple of years for some reason--temperature? dampness?--the leaves have not been so nice, spotted and dropping early. I was about to chuck these when I thought the dying leaves had a not bad draping effect!
Any suggestions on the background? I'd leave it white--the easy way out--but I may need to pull some of the blue-greens in the vase into the upper background, and some of the yellow-greens in the leaves into the bottom half ...

 

wednesday 10-11

This week our model was Megan. I have only painted her once before, about a year ago (will find and post that painting, which, up to that time, and maybe to this, was, I think, one of my most successful efforts), but she is one of my favorites. You can't tell from these sketches, but she has a lovely face with dark eyes, upturned nose, and Cupid's bow lips--she looks like she could have modeled for Degas or Cezanne. Above are two pages of 2-minute poses wherein our instructor, Bonnie, wanted us to try to capture the central line of the body.

And here are two 20-minute poses, where we were trying to integrate figure and background, by pulling colors from the model into the background and vice versa. I'm sorry these photographs don't really show the lighter colors! My flash is too strong ... I'll try rephotographing them.
 

tuesday 10-10

Began painting this setup this week ... I built the setup around a stalk of silk Chinese lanterns, which I love, but, right now, the red poppy dominates! The cloth has an Asian motif--orchids and lilies. Tried to fit some silver dollars I found while walking Itchy in, but it was too crowded. Maybe they'll hold up until the next painting ... Silver dollars and more red poppies, I think. Hope to finish this next week.