PEAR IN SNOW

It is actually snowing as I photograph this. The challenge here, of course is to convey that sense of near-white all around. The pear is slightly shadowed from being beside the house, therefore there isn't as much scattered light on that side.

LIGHT EXERCISE, PEAR IN EARLY MORNING

Hard to see in this photo, easier to see in the painting, the light here was very violet, with cooler shadows. There are scattered clouds, and the early sun is pinking them up. Unfortunately, the pear again chooses to pose on its side, this time looking something like a lime. I'm going to have to hire a new pear.

LIGHT EXERCISE, PEAR IN WINTER SUNLIGHT

We had a lot of fun with these. A lot of the pears in class looked vaguely like avocados. I made sure to put the bud end on to avoid just this problem. But maybe, in reality, it is more a problem of inexact observation of shape, or the unfortunate pose that this particular pear insisted on--and it did insist!

LIGHT EXERCISE, Pear 1

These light studies are a series that I set up outdoors in various light conditions, then imitated in class using cellophane to filter light color. It's amazing how well we can duplicate the lighting conditions with one color on the lamp and another over the box top to indicate sky color.
This pear is painted in lighting two hours after sunrise, with broken clouds on a winter day. In the class, we used magenta sky filter and yellow light filter, with the light placed distant from the box.

The colors of the photo aren't particularly true to the painting, but give something of the feel of it.

STILL LIFE

Painting still life with some friends. Can you say STRETCH?

It's good to get out of the comfort zone occasionally. My tip of the day, To get rid of a really loud area, take your brush and smush it together. I can't believe it but it works!