"Maraschino" oil on panel, 12"x16". The top half of the painting is mostly done, except for some touch-ups. Because I'm painting in natural light I've only been able to work on this one sporadically. I'm excited about my progress so far. My paintings don't always match the idea that I have in my head, but this one comes pretty close. I used a fishbowl to float the cherries and weighted down the boat with pennies. Then I placed it on a glass filled with pennies also, so the boat wouldn't spin. I'm really inspired by the amazing lengths the artist Teresa N Fischer goes to set up her still lifes, which she chronicles on her blog. Check it out if you haven't already. I'm going to start on the green cloth today, which I can se is going to have to be tempered down a bit. I'll push the colors more towards blue and away from the yellow spectrum. If I could, I would probably only paint in daylight at this point. Daylight bulbs are okay but nothing beats the real thing! Sometimes one medium can lead to changes in your primary medium. I've mysteriously enough, been asked to do a lot of colored pencil demos lately and working on the white ground has influenced me to skip my usual raw umber wash in and begin the underpainting directly with color. I've got two paintings going along those lines. I have this idea that the color will be better, we'll see.
