Homegrown Tomatoes

As you can see, not just strawberries are in season now - these tomatoes were difficult for me to paint as the color red with all the lights, darks and reflections just seems to challenge me every time. Here they are fresh from the garden just before they turned into a delicious salsa!

Sprouting Sweet Potatoes 2

Another take on the sprouting potato plant. I find that the darker background brings out the greens very well; also, I focused on the foreground more and let the background leaves stay back with less details. I like how this painting came out -

Sprouting Sweet Potatoes 1

I cut a couple sweet potato vines from the school garden. The plan for them is to start sprouting roots in a glass of water and then being planted again somewhere else. The leaves looked so vigorous and inspired me to paint them.

Florida Strawberries

Yay - my first post this year!!! Posing were left-over strawberries from our trip to the "U-Pick" Farm. Now is the season here in South Florida because the summers are too hot. Warm wishes from Sunny Florida to everybody up North in the freezing cold.

Four Onions

I am posting these onions as a symbol for good health and happiness in the new year. Best wishes to all my friends who follow me on this blog. I am looking forward to many happy days of painting!

Board Walk Entrance

The latest result of hanging out at the park on Saturday mornings. Recent snow storms up North are bringing cooler temperatures to us here in South Florida as well, meaning the weather is now beautiful and pleasant. The best of it all is that there are no mosquitos!!!

Fruit for Dessert

I was interested in the melon's reflections on the knife and glass surface. The very strong spot light gave lots of opportunity to play with bright and shadow colors in this painting.

Three Red Pears

I like how this painting turned out. The rough texture helped not to get too fuzzy with details.

Essence of Lemon 'n Lime

This one is on the back of a masonite board as you can see on the rougher looking surface. This kind of painting surface pushes me to keep everything simple and spontaneous. 

Best wishes to all my friends and happy painting!!!

Water Reflections 1

Another take on reflections and plants on the pond. While some pads are above water, others are floating on the water. I am not sure if I was able to get that going here ... One extra comment I want to add is that I learned a lot about water reflections and wearing polarized sun glasses.What a difference! I had to decide which way to go: with my shades on, the water's deep beautiful brown tones in the foreground were stunning; however, with my shades off, the sky reflecting on the water seemed to look more natural. Does any of you plein air painters have something to say about that?

Lily Pads

The challenge of a windy Saturday morning in the park. The reflections in the water kept on changing so rapidly that I had difficulty "to freeze them in time". The fun of painting on location is to put down what is in front and not touch it anymore - even though a million temptations are creeping up..... The key is working rapidly or only for an hour or two if it is a bigger painting and come back another day at the same time and weather condition. I really like the water plants and sky reflections on the water. I plan to come back for those.

Tangerines

Still working with the acrylics. Those juicy fruits are looking even more tempting with the complimentary colored background. Thanks everybody for the support and positive feed back that I have received over the last few weeks. It is very much appreciated. Happy painting to y' all!

Pears in a Cup

... and more acrylics ... I like how the greens of the pears came out. The complimentary color set up is similar to the previous painting, which makes it vibrant and interesting. I plan to paint more fruit and glass still life, hopefully later today. In the meantime a happy day to everybody!!

Prunes in a Jar

Here again acrylics at work. Who can resist the appeal of complimentary colors? Totally fun!!!  I like that the faster drying paints force me to mix the colors more on the palette than on the painting. I feel I have to be more decisive with the values and colors right from the beginning....

Waiting Waffles

My 100th post on this blog!!!  Yay!!! It's time to add something different .... well ... the "something different" is the addition of a new medium: acrylic paints. I thought I give acrylics a try as a collection of donated tubes with acrylic paints accumulated on my desk over time. When people hear that I paint they remember the unused paints they have sitting in a draw. I welcome all donations... and here I am. I added acrylics to my blog's title to reflect my new experiment. Being used to working with oils, acrylics feel stickier and less blendable because they dry faster. The greatest thing however is the clean-up - so fast with water and no smells of paint thinner. Clean-up is the big deal with the oils... so far I still want to explore the acrylics some more but I will not give up the oils. The thing I love about them is what everybody loves: the richness of color, excellent for blending and the consistency.... smooooooth!
Today's subject are 3 left-over waffles from breakfast. They are sitting on a kitchen towel waiting to be eaten with strawberries and whipped cream - sinfully good!

Getting Ready

... and more painting horses in the park under huge oak trees that offer plenty of shade. This horse got saddled and is now waiting to go for a morning ride through the woods. I admire the dedicated horse owners who transport the animals, hay, water barrels and all, to the park every week-end. The county park set up a shaded fenced in area for simple pony rides or longer trips through the woods on special trails. After the horses came back from their excursion it was fun to see how much they liked sliced water melon for a treat.

Crepe Myrtle

These flowers from a shrub turned out to be a challenge in terms of front and back. I learned from observing this still life that it is very important to nuance the colors according to back ground, middle and foreground. When I sat in front of this still life, the pinks of the flowers seemed the same. Now looking at the finished painting I see that different tones, cooler in the back and warmer in the front could have made this mass of pink more three dimensional. Wow, flowers are so amazing!!!

Oak Tree Morning

It is still very hot and humid here in South Florida on this very last September week end. Good thing the weather was nice and I could finish this painting. I like how the early sunrays light up the lower part of the tree.

Plums vs. Pepper

I have had not much time to paint recently - reality gets into my way constantly - urgh! Feeling a little rusty I went back to still life for a warm up or as some people call it back to the comfort zone. The complementary colors are creating some nice action here - I plan to make more time to paint...

Breakfast Rolls

This is painted on the rough, gessoed surface of the back of a masonite board which I really like. My favorite part in the picture is... yes, you guessed it... the reflections in the knife. That was absolutely fun to create.