"Anjou Pears" and "Limone"

After being away for a week on an awesome family camping trip, these two paintings, "Anjou Pears" 11"x14" and "Limone" 16"x20", were dry enough to oil out and do some retouching. I don't use retouch varnish for oiling out. It dries too fast for me and it has a tacky feeling. I prefer to oil out with refined linseed oil mixed with odorless mineral spirits, six parts spirits to four parts oil. I use a sable brush to cover the entire canvas. Then I gently pat it down with a Viva paper towel. The thin coating that's left brings up the colors and makes the painting feel like you're still working wet into wet. I did quite a bit of retouching on these two, I'm never fully satisfied (is anybody ever?). In "Limone" my goal was to have the figures without losing the still life as the center of interest. That's the main reason why the front figure was darkened and the values compressed. I did the same for the green apron because again I felt it was too busy and competing with the lemons. In "Anjou Pears" I worked mainly on the vase and table. I altered the top of the vase. I felt there was too much of that viridian, making it top heavy, and I darkened the shadow area to make the lights fuller. After being away from my easel for a week I was chomping at the bit and I'm glad I was able to wrap these up because I have a new setup in my head that I'm eager to start on.