Work in progress--upside down

I finished this painting yesterday. It's a vase I bought at the Kings Mountain Art Festival last summer, the artist carved fish into the clay so it almost looks like wood. I put some dried leaves into it and photographed it on top of a black and white plaid kitchen towel. In this picture, I have turned it upside down so I can work on the leaves--the reference photo above it is also upside down. Working this way is an excellent drawing technique as it tricks your brain, so it doesn't think of the shapes as "leaf" or "vase" but instead, sees them merely as shapes and colors.

One last camellia

This was really the most dramatic of the camellia pictures that my son shot for me at the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena. A shaft of sunlight came through the bushes and hit this fallen flower like a spotlight. Gorgeous.

Another stupid web quiz

You Are A Cypress Tree

You are strong, adaptable, and striving to be content. You're good at taking what life has to give - even if you don't like it. A passionate lover who can't be satisfied, you are quick tempered at times. You hate loneliness, want love and affection, and need to be needed. A bit of a live wire, you love to gain knowledge any cost... and you can be careless at times.

What's Your Celtic Horoscope?

Christmas Wreath

This Christmas wreath is my latest finished painting. The actual wreath that inspired me has artificial apples and berries mixed in with real twigs and pine cones, but I think they look real in the painting. It took about six hours to paint.

A series of squash

It's been awhile since I posted, but I have been busy painting! These are three that I completed, all the photos were taken at Farmer John's Pumpkin Farm in Half Moon Bay, a really fun place to visit during the Halloween/Thanksgiving season. The largest one, six pumpkins, is painted on watercolor board--it is illustration board with watercolor paper bonded to the surface (made by Crescent, I order it from Cheap Joe's online).