Some New Things and Progress Shots

I've got a few things going simultaneously, always a lot easier when I'm of from my day job. I'm still working on a portrait once a week and I'm continuing to work in daylight on some of my still lifes.

"Strawberries, Canoe, and Oranges" oil on panel, 16" x 20". The fruit is completed. Not my usual method but when painting fruit, you can't wait around for the rest of the painting to catch up. You only have a few days before you lose that initial "bloom" that captured your eye in the first place. I've been looking a lot at Chardin (yet again), and I've decided that I kind of like the idea that my paintings clearly spring from that tradition but have a little bit of "magic realism " in them. I always think of that great Chardin painting that's in the met with the cat and the huge orange balanced precariously on top of a silver urn.

"Reveille" oil on panel. 16"x12". I set this one up thinking how great it would be to paint all of these metallic textures, Then a theme suggested itself, that of a wandering soldier ( I have to stop reading "Game of Thrones") Anyway this shows an umber wash in with the beginning of a color pass.

A little more progress on "Phoebe" oil on panel, 9"x12". I hope I'm coming close to capturing the beautiful copper toned quality of her skin. I have to watch that I don't let the paint film get too thin. I have a tendency when I'm really trying hard to capture a subtle turn of not using enough paint so I may have to repaint parts of the cheek and forehead. If this painting goes well I have it in mind to expand the original drawing into a larger painting that incorporates more background. I hope Phoebe is up for it!