playing hard to get

Guess you could say there is a double entendre for the title of this painting.

The pear on the left just wouldn't cozy up to the pear on the right! So it did seem to be playing hard to get.

The other elusive element was that da*n yellow in shadow!

I almost gave up. I thought the problem was the color of the pears but it was really a problem with the surrounding color! It started out with a dark navy-ish background which had worked well on an earlier painting of pears. That one was a trio of pears on a wooden plated and the yellow stood out well against the dark so I figured it would be good for this painting.

But it just didn't work with this composition. The important element here is the relationship between the pears. (I know... they're PEARS not people!)
Whatever...
Anyway, the area of interest is the push/pull of distance and connection in the space between the pears. Light from the pear on the right reflects on the opposite pear and you can tell they have a lot in common.

But the pear on the left? It's just not sure yet, weighing it's options.

There's no competition with a grey background - it creates a neutral environment that makes sense.
(Neutral and non-competative... which is good if you are thinking about how pears might have relationships that they are sort of ambivalent about...) And yet I know - pears are not people.

In any case... I'm happy with the yellow in shadow. And that was the whole point, right?
(unless you are a pear... and then maybe it's about playing hard to get!)

just say NO!

Oh what a week!

Painting is challenging, but you know what's really hard? Committing to yourself as wholeheartedly as you do to other people and responsibilities.

And by "you" of course, I mean "me."

This week I was busy with projects for our choral group. Somehow, I let that take over my life and I never got into the studio. While I feel very good about working with the chorale, I don't feel so good about letting myself... and my artwork... down.

I think I need an attitude adjustment.

Creating artwork is so enjoyable that even though it's called artWORK, the word doesn't quite fit. So I need to remind myself that this is what I want to do in life. My work.

Oddly, I feel more comfortable describing myself as a "painter" than an "artist." Somehow it feels like painter is more of a "doing" role than artist which is kind of philosophical, emotional or cerebral, maybe. To paint well you've gotta be in the studio consistently, doing the job of painting.

It was a long and windy road, but I think I got there: I am a painter. That's what I do and how I hope to earn a living... which means studio time matters!

Fellow painters - How do you keep from letting distractions take over your studio time?
At the risk of distracting you... tell me how you manage to just say no.

got lemons? paint lemonade!

I like yellow things - pears, lemons, sunshine...yellow labs puppies! who doesn't?!

Yellow paint? that's another story. I have two of the most beautiful yellow pears in my studio. They are supposed to be the luscious subject of a new still life, but they are far from luscious... so far.

What color is yellow in shadow anyway? brown, grey, rusty, greenish? Sometimes it's even kind of purple! You see the problem.

Yesterday was a rainy, dismal day and my yellow paint was equally dismal. So to keep myself hopeful that there is real lemon yellow somewhere in the palette of my mind, I'm posting a more successful journey into the sunny world of yellow via lemons (with artichokes lurking in the shadow). I know I struggled with the lemon shadow color for this painting too because I was tempted to turn them into  lemonade!

I hope to post my yellow pears soon... when we are on better terms.

If you love artichokes, sorry to relegate them to the background, but this painting is all about the juicy yellow lemons!