"Backlit"

6x6", oil on canvas board

The gourds are slowly fading, but this one still looks fine. I'm enjoying having dark objects on bright backgrounds. It seems to give it an interesting fire. This was one of those paintings where I just hung onto the brush, while it painted itself.

"Introverted"

6x6", oil on canvas board

Another in my gourd series. This one ended up being kind of a lesson in brush strokes. They certainly angle towards the gourd, but they might also make it look like it's radiating energy.

"Up Periscope"

6x6", oil on canvas boardv

This was fun to paint. It went pretty quicky and came out loose. It was fun to mix the highlit and shadowed versions of the gourd color.

If you watch this blog, you probably know that I love shadows. I even remember deciding that, at least for the painter, the shadow should be considered an object. For the viewer, not so much. We'll still automatically try to arrange the 3D objects in similar groups. So I tend to use an odd number of 3D objects and consider the shadow a different kind of object I have to paint. (Of course, the odd number I've been using recently is "one.")

"Snakey"

6x6", oil on canvas board

As I said in my prior post, bumpy gourds are hard to paint. I took the approach of painting the background color, then adding the color of the actual bumps. But I liked the way that the neck on this one curved around, and I was able to find an angle where the shadow looked cool.

We're currently in Honolulu, where I've so far painted a bunch of bananas and a couple of papayas.

"Pop"

6x6", oil on canvas board

It's been awhile since I've posted. I think I'm learning the delights of prioritizing. I find that when I get busy, I do try to keep painting, but, yes, the blogging does go by the wayside for awhile. The good thing is that I've been doing stuff.

I enjoy gourds, although the really bumpy ones are hard to paint. This one just came out so round that I named it Pop. I have a few more gourd and persimmon paintings lined up.