Yum ... Late Summer Veggies!

Yum .. Late Summer Veggies! - 10 x 8", Watercolor on WC Paper

I'm in a watercolor sketching group, and I have not been contributing much to it for much of the summer.  Today, I went to our local Amish farm stand, and found these beautiful peppers and tomatoes.  I particularly love the look of the heirloom ones.  They remind me of gigantic gooseberries.  I placed them on blue-green placemats I have because I knew the color contrast would make the veggies pop.  I used ultramarine blue for the shadows, and love the water-like impression it creates.

It is so neat living so close to where this food is grown.  And, it is neat to have gotten to know the family who run the farm and the stand.  Our sales girl today is a favorite of ours.  We've know her since she was 11, and she is smart as a whip.  She not only can easily do calculations in her head (a dying art since the advent of calculators), but she's feisty and a natural saleswoman.

Living in an academic family for so long, part of me aches to think she's already left school: she had to or be shunned for getting too much education. But, she seems happy, so recovery has helped me realize that she can be quite happy living a life with her family and in her community.

I haven't put an unmatted watercolor on paper up for auction in my DailyPaintworks gallery for a long time, so I'm going to do that with this small piece; and I'm going to make the starting bid a real bargain: $10.  If you are interested in it, check it out.

Summer's Bounty as Models

Mmm ... Tomatoes, 6 x 12", Acrylic on Canvasboard by Tracy Feldman

We are going down to visit with our niece and her family for a few days.  Since it is full summer and we are coming from the place in the US with the richest non-irrigated farmland, we asked them if there was anything we could bring.  My niece asked for tomatoes, and so I went to a roadside stand to get them.  They had lovely, red beefsteak tomatoes, and green tomatoes, and I decided to get both in case they thought it would be fun to make fried green tomatoes (made famous in the movie of the same name).

       After I got home I realized that I also had some low-acid (oranger) tomatoes and some cherry tomatoes that I had just gotten at our favorite Amish farm stand, and looking at all their luscious colors, I thought about what a beautiful painting it would make.  I was particularly pleased because I realized  with the addition of a paring knife and a yellow-green cutting board, these lovelies would make perfect models for a painting.  Thus, I went out onto my deck and set up the still life.  I really love the the way the glass top of the table I was sitting them on created the impression that my still life is floating on water. I also love the idea that my tomatoes will have a career before they come to a tomato's typical end (on the top of a fork).  I hope you enjoy viewing it as much as I did painting it.

     As usual, I'm placing this little work in my Daily Paintworks gallery for sale. It will be initially place on auction -- starting out less than I'll sell it for at a show. So if you are interested in checking it out and bidding on it click here.
     

Working from Life

Vegetables in Sun - wide,
Oil pastel on canvas board, 17.7 x 9.7"

The three paintings in this blog were all done from life.  In the past,  I've not generally worked that way.  I usually work from photos.  I've often felt a little guilty (a little less than) for doing this.  Why?  Because most people I've talked to -- artists and non-artists alike -- assume that paintings made from life are better, more-dynamic, than those that use photos as a resource.

Vegetables in Sun - tall,
Oil Pastel on canvas board, 12.3 x 16.5"

When I look back on my early works, I have to admit that some of  my paintings had a stiffness about them.  This was because, like a lot of beginning painters, I assumed that my paintings got better the more slavishly they duplicated their photo resource. While I've let go of that mistaken approach, I still often rely a lot on photo references because freezing an image at a moment in time preserves the way the light and shadow influence the shape, color, and depth of field. Working outside in the sun complicates that because natural sunlight changes all the time.  However, over the years, I've loosened up the way I use photos.  Now,  I am happy to edit the images and composition (in my own head and the final painting) to create the visual story that I want to tell.  In fact, it isn't uncommon for me to go so far as using elements from several photos in a single work.

      Vegetables in the Sun -  wide, and Vegetables in the Sun -  tall, are two works I created on a single piece of canvas board, and  that I later cut up to create the final pieces.  I worked in oil pastels and set up each still life on my porch using some of my favorite late-summer vegetables from Lancaster County farms.  I played with dramatically changing the point of view and the composition to add an unexpected element  to the works.  I have to admit that rushing to capture the light does add a dynamism to the way I laid down the image.  I love that -- particularly the more-realized Vegetables in the sun - wide.

Which Came First ....?,
watercolor and acrylic on canvas, 8 x 10"

    The final work I have here is a more-standard still life, set up under studio lights.  It's a topic I normally wouldn't do, but I was working to complete a Daily Paintworks Challenge  about painting a broken egg.  I have decided that one way to get back into painting is to do more of these challenges.  I chose the broken egg challenge because I knew it would really test me -- since I had no idea how I was going to do it.  It took me a couple of days to come up with the idea of breaking an egg on an image of a chicken so I could call the work Which Came First ...?  This work was my second attempt to complete the challenge because painting egg shells is ... challenging.  If you look at the original watercolor of the chicken, you'll notice I simplified and darkened the tail a lot so as not to compete with the main subject of the painting -- the broken egg.

       You can go to my gallery on Daily Paintworks.com to participate in the Auctions for the two larger works (bidding starts at $35 because they are larger, and will be priced higher after the auction), or you can pay $15 for the challenge painting.

    Enjoy!