"Reflections of a Banana Pepper"

6x8 Oil on Ray Mar Panel NFS

This is my submission for the Daily Paint Works Challenge given by Abbey Ryan a couple of weeks ago.  Here were the instructions.....Paint a reflective object from life. As you are setting up your still life, pay particular attention to your excitement about the reflections. Once you find something that catches your eye, use your painting time to make a visual inquiry about the nature of reflections."

So the objects I chose were a little glass bottle along with a banana pepper that I picked from my garden.  Instead of painting it near a window as usual, I closed the blind and used a light adjusted over the set up to eliminate moving reflections from the natural daylight.
   My visual inquiries were how cool it was that the pepper behind the glass flows into the reflections of the glass itself...see how that yellow/green creeps up the sides and then is distorted in each section of the glass?  I am so easily amused.

"Close Enough"

8x6 Oil on board

This is my very first portrait in paint ...I entered it on the Daily Paint Works website.  It is under one of the many challenges going on.  This one called "All About Me".   A wonderful painter named Carol Marine hosted this one saying "nothing to learn here,  exept perhaps that portraits are frickin hard!"  Haha YES they are!  but it was fun as well.
Now my hair really isn't purple and orange, and at this point I don't know what color it really is.  Besides it's cheaper to try out a new look on canvas don't you think?

Daily Paintworks Challenges

One Stroke Per Color Challenge

This is another one led by Carol Marine.  Painting one stroke and getting the right color was very difficult to do for me.  I had to mix enough of the same color to get the same background.  It also forces you to slow down.

  So about this globe.  A few years ago I got this bug to collect old globes on ebay.  This is one of my favorites,  the colors are pretty bright and of course it is outdated....It has dings and dents and is wobbly.  I suppose that's part of it's charm.

10x8 Oil

"Old Tin Globe"

The Zippo Challenge

This challenge was hosted by one of my favorite artists Michael Naples...I LOVE his work.

for this we could only use 3 colors, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and titanium white.

It's amazing how many colors you can make from that pallete!

So when I showed my family members this little painting they all said it was Papa's Zippo...he was our grandfather who alway's had his Zippo handy.  I like the sound they make when you flip the top!

6x8 Oil

"Papa's Zippo"

Ten Minute Challenge

Oil on 2 6x6 panels

This is a new challenge, it is from the Daily Paint Works site which has some of my favorite artist's on it.  One of which is Carol Marine who started a new weekly challenge open to all artists.  This week is a 10 Minute Challenge, rules are basically this:

Pick 1 object, set your timer for 10 minutes, paint the object and then stop when timer is up.  So each

square takes 10 minutes it goes by so fast and that is the point, to minimize brush strokes and just look at the shapes of color.  You can change the position or lighting. (I did a cooler light in the first 4).  

Sound easy?  well it wasn't.  First I did a banana...all 8.  They turned out terrible, so I scraped off the paint and ate the banana.  Then I tried a tomato, and here those are.  The last one is a slice.  I gave the the rest to my son and he made a sandwhich.  Definately will try more of these! 

Oil on 1 12x6 panel
"Ten Minute Tomatoes"  study

www.dailypaintworks.com