Pear #9 - Changing Up The Color

"He had that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign
of a subtle artistic temperament, and in nations is said to denote a laxity,
if not a decadence of morals."
                                                                                           ~ Oscar Wilde

Pear #9
6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas board

I love the intense reds and oranges I've been using lately, but with a wall full of these color schemes, I felt it was time to change up the colors.

I also set a timer so I wouldn't overwork this piece. I ended up finishing before the timer went off, which was very surprising. It made me wonder if my timer was broken, but when I took a peek it turned out I had ten minutes left! I'm really quite please with this one.

But nothing's ever that easy. A few hours later I accidentally bumped into my easel and this poor painting fell off, smearing some sections including the left side of the pear and the right side of the plate! Luckily I hadn't cleaned my palette yet, so I had leftover paint to patch this piece's injuries. How nerve-wracking to fix a painting you originally liked, holding your breath and hoping you can restore it instead of ruining it beyond repair. Somehow I managed. You can see the blotchy shine along the upper edge of the canvas where I tried my best to fix some other smears. Once I varnish this piece those areas will disappear, but I'll always remember what happened. 

Taking a Pear Project Break to Ireland

Rock of Cashel, County Tipperary, Ireland

All pears and no play make a boring blog, so I thought I'd post about something different today.

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to visit Ireland for a week when my husband went there on business. We stayed in Dublin, where I visited the National Gallery of Ireland and the archeological branch of the National Museum of Ireland, but I mostly took day trips into the countryside while my husband was stuck at work.

There are many small seaside towns on Dublin Bay just a quick train ride from the center of Dublin, and I happily whiled away my time exploring the flora, fauna, and food of these areas (fish & chips, seafood chowder with brown bread. Mmmm!)

Boating past cliffs of gannets (the white dots).

On the northern edge of Dublin Bay is the fishing village of Howth, with its bustling harbor and large selection of seafood restaurants. I took a boat tour out and around Ireland's Eye, an island teeming with seabirds. I was thrilled that there were gannets everywhere - preening on the cliffs, flying overhead, diving into the water - a lifer for me (for the non-birders out there, a "lifer" is what you call a bird species the first time you see it in the wild and then you add it to your life list.) An added treat was the occasional seal popping its head up from the water to watch the boat as we chugged along. One large seal swam alongside us for a little ways, seeming to escort us back to the harbor.

The seals don't mind the wet weather.

Colliemore Harbour with Dalkey Island in the distance.

Another day I took a train south of Dublin to the town of Dalkey, and then walked to picturesque Colliemore Harbour just south of town. The wind was blowing and raindrops were beginning to fall, but I had a good rain jacket so I forged ahead. Dalkey Island sits less than a half mile across from the harbor and, according to the interpretive signs at the harbor overlook, is home to wild rabbits, goats and the ruins of a church that dates back to the 10th century. This ruin on the exposed rocky island captured my attention, and despite the light rain and the wind threatening to send my sketchbook into the water, I had to sketch it.

Pen & ink sketch with watercolor and raindrops.

Dolphins and whales are not unusual around Dublin Bay, but although I scanned the waters every chance I got, unfortunately I didn't see a single one. However, everything else I saw and did in Ireland more than made up for it.

Now back to our regularly scheduled pear program...

Pear #6, 7 & 8 - Getting Back on the Horse

"There is no such thing as a failed painting, there is only practice for a
successful one..."
                                                                                       ~ Brenda Behr

Pear #6 C - Pear on a Pedestal
7 x 5 inches, oil on canvas paper

After Pear #5, I got all excited about the idea of a series of paintings where I would keep the color scheme and main elements from that painting the same and just change around the composition. Uh, that didn't work out too well... it was as if I'd forgotten how to paint!

I had to scrap #6 A and B which put me behind schedule, so I decided to go back to the basics again and try a black and white painting. I still overworked the pear, but at least in #6 C it looked like a pear!

Pear #7
7 x 5 inches, oil on canvas board
Meh...

Someone was giving away the last of the pears from their fruit tree so I took one and didn't realize until I got back in the studio that it was a very boring pear. Too smooth, too thin. I adjusted the lighting multiple times, but couldn't get the shadows to play across the pear the way I wanted. I ended up overworking the painting and bleaching out the pear. (Not to blame my model for the shortcomings in Pear #7; I was the one holding the paintbrush, after all.) I don't mean to be completely negative about this effort. There are still a few successful elements in the piece that did manage to survive all my overworking.

Pear #8
7 x 5 inches, oil on canvas board
Overworked, but much better than previous.

Overall, I think Pear #8 was the most successful of these three paintings. I picked up a lovely curvaceous pear at the grocery store to replace my previous model (who found a nice home in the compost pile), with dimples and bumps to make the shadows happy. However, I'm still finding it difficult to put the brush down before I overwork a piece. I think I'm going to set a timer for the next painting.

Pear #5

Pear #5
6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas board

This is my favorite pear painting so far. Everything just kind of came together. I love the bold colors, the way the pear is rendered, the composition. But of course this makes the next painting more difficult. The pressure's on to see if I can top this one, or at least equal it. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Pear 4

Pear 4
6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas panel

I decided to go a little more bold and a little more complex this round. I will admit to being petrified as I painted the pattern on the blue china pot. It seems silly to have been so nervous about it since I planned to keep the pattern fairly abstract, but I had to keep reminding myself to breath.

Pear 2 & 3

Pear #2
6x6 inches, oil on canvas paper

Time is flying - only 27 more pear paintings to go in the 30 Pears in 30 Days project! 

I'm not sure why I decided to include a plate in this one, since ellipses are tricky to get right. Nothing like an added bit of pressure, second painting in. Luckily it didn't turn out half bad.

Pear #3
6x6 inches, oil on canvas paper 

I used a limited palette of blue-violet and yellow-orange for Pear #3. Mixing the two together in equal parts gives a nice neutral which I used for the pear stem and the surface the pear sits on, adding a touch more yellow-orange for the warm well-lit part and adding a little more blue-violet for the shadow part. The pear itself is a mix of the two colors, but with enough extra blue-violet to appear greenish, and then enough yellow-orange to appear yellowish in the highlighted areas. The specific colors really don't matter that much, though. As long as the values of the colors are correct, the pear will appear 3 dimensional and pear-like no matter what colors I choose. I could've painted this whole scene in lavender and it would still read "pear". Hmm, that gives me an idea..

Pear #1 - The Diva

Pear #1 - The Diva 
6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas paper

It’s October 1st, and that means the beginning of the 30 Pears in 30 Days project! And here it is, the first of 30 pear paintings. A value study in black & white. The whole time I was painting this, I was thinking about the pear being a diva in the spotlight. I wonder what she was singing. 

I love the stem on this pear. So long and expressive - almost like a cat’s tail. While I was doing warm-up sketches this past week in preparation for starting the daily pear paintings project, I realized I can’t get too attached to any one pear because they don’t hold up forever, especially under my studio lights. I have to remind myself there will be other divas.