Black and Green

10" x 10", oil on canvas
Working with a limited palette of viridian, cadmium yellow light, cobalt blue, alizarin and titanium white. Applying more paint and using a larger brush - the problem as usual was not tweaking with a tiddly brush at the end. I have to get over the idea that all edges have to be neat and tidy, that I'm working toward suggestion more than detail. I read again last night that by leaving a suggestion you engage your viewer more because they have to fill in the gaps. Very pleased with the reflection of the apple in the cup.

Unwrapped

Working with blue underpainting proved more difficult than the magenta did. Very hard to get cleaner colours for the icing. The extemely subtle colour changes in the cupcake case were very hard to do and not revert to using tiddly brushes.

I'm trying to get myself to do more sketching so this is todays - ok yes, I did it from a photo - excuse? Em..... none!
I remember reading in "Five Quarters of the Orange' by Joanne Harris about a recipe book, created by the main character's mother, which is illustrated with little drawings and paintings and the idea captivated me then. And of course it would be a great way to capture my crazy nomadic lifestyle on paper. Since then sketchbook/journals seem to have taken off as an artform and I love seeing snippets posted on blogs. Its a bit like peeking through a window into people's lives. Not sure I will ever get my sketchbook looking like that but i'll give it a go! There seems to be as much to learn about creating great sketchbooks/journals as there is to doing any other artwork - mixing media like ink and watercolour, coloured pencils and an abundance of other media. And then there are the sketchbooks themselves! I have moleskines - both waterolour and drawing. And then I've seen homemade sketchbooks and I wonder about whether I should try to do one of those. There are whole books written on creating journals. I got some great tips from Billie Crain on putting together a watercolour sketch kit so I will do that tomorrow to take to work with me on Thursday. I already have coloured pencils salted away at work - now all I have to do is put pen/brush/pencil to paper ....................

Any tips on journalling/sketchbooks welcomed.

With A Cherry On Top

Also had great fun working this landscape - I need to take another look at it tomorrow in the daylight as I think it needs some tweaking.

Its a very long time since I have done a landscape - I think this is the first in around 3 years. Landscapes were my first love in painting and painting this reminded me of that. Two of my favourite artists are Diebenkorn and Wayne Thiebaud. I love Diebenkorn's abstract landscape Ocean Park series. And Wayne Thiebaud paints deliciously coloured landscapes (he also paints cakes and pies!)