Navels in the Orchard is actually just navels on canvas, another oil painting of Tulare County citrus.
I painted the details working from the back to the front, which means first I painted the items which are the farthest away from the viewer.
Usually I wait until the painting is dry to photograph it. But look at the weather —the sun wasn’t shining, making the wet parts sparkle.
Since Exeter’s Mural Gallery (121 South E Street) is reopening (TODAY!), I have a renewed interest in painting oranges.
The painting on the left is untitled, so for now I will call it The Painting Formerly Known As Turning Leaf. (I thought that Turning Leaf was a good painting, but apparently I was alone in my opinion.) The painting on the right is also untitled, currently known as The Painting Formerly Known As An Unsold Pomegranate. (Ditto my thoughts on that pomegranate painting.)
Easel place swap!
Not good enough yet.
Better, but photographed with an unsightly wet shine.
Therefore, I did not photograph The Painting Formerly Known as a Pomegranate.
Instead, I started a new painting. Painting oranges reignited my enjoyment of the subject, so this time I really started whooping it up with a 10×10″ canvas.
I’m going to really like this painting (until I change my mind and retouch it.)
P.S. These won’t be in the Mural Gallery just yet. They need to get finished, dry, titled, and scanned.
As I plan for the solo show at CACHE in autumn, there are a handful of paintings that I want to improve. Finesse. Polish. Tweak. Pick your word.
I love this scene! It’s one of the earlier pieces of my obsession with orange groves, foothills, and snow-covered peaks, titled “Tulare County’s Best”. Why hasn’t it sold?
I changed some of the colors and tightened some details on Alta Peak, along with making it stand out a bit more.
I painted this one with the intention of enjoying it in my dining area for awhile before putting it in the gallery (the show isn’t until mid-October). After living with it for awhile, I saw a way to make it better. So, back to the easel.
I have a few more to puzzle over and figure out how to improve. But, I’m in Texas right now, so the other Tulare County paintings will have to wait.
Trail Guy and I took a walk. As we were approaching home, this is what we saw.
After this excitement (plus the usual mess of turkeys in the yard), I went into the workshop to work on three paintings. One needed finishing, one needed more detail, and one needed the first layer.
For the past few years, my favorite subject to paint is orange groves with hills and mountains.I’ve had a large (for me) painting in progress in a time-out for awhile. In that bonus week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I worked on it.
First, I photographed it, studied it on my laptop screen, and circled the parts that were not up to snuff (weird cliché, whose meaning I do not know).
I started with the mushy rows in the red oval. It’s all wet and shiny, so these photos may not appear to be an improvement.
The orange oval was next, and I kept expanding the area around it.
The upper right corner was next. I ignored the pink, yellow, and light green ovaled areas, because I am the boss.
Now let’s look at the painting as a whole.
The usual excuses for photography that doesn’t do justice to the verbal explanations: low light, shiny paint, photographed with inferior phone instead of camera, and of course, there are many areas remaining to be detailed. I can’t tell you that it will look better when it is scanned, because it is too big to scan. But I can tell you that it looks way better in person!
Feeling fruity around here lately. A month or 2 ago, I painted this to decorate a banquet for a citrus marketing outfit.
A friend who has bought more of my paintings than anyone else saw this. She said, “If it doesn’t sell at the event, I want it!”
I took the painting to her, and she said, “I’ve been thinking. . . could you change one of these to a pomegranate? And include both kinds of persimmons?”
I said, “Sure, I can do that!”
Then I brought it home, thought it over, and decided to do a new piece for her. I dug through my fruit photos, looking carefully at the lighting and angles. Then, unlike my normal approach, I drew it out.
This is going to be good—colorful and well planned.
The other fruit painting I recently painted as a gift, I did without any real planning. I just pantsed it, trying this and that with paint, having fun with color.
I like it, and so does the recipient. Yeah, yeah, it probably would have been better to plan it. Sometimes I just rebel.
P.S. Good thing I painted a new one because the original, Citrus Row, sold at CACHE’s Holiday Fair!
Obviously, I could use a little help with titles here.
“Oranges in a Blue Bowl” is too obvious; maybe I can think of a title that has to do with the fact that orange and blue are complementary colors. This means they are opposite one another on the color wheel—”complementary”, not “complimentary” such as “Oh my goodness, you are looking gorgeous today!”
Normally we think of ducks being in a row (WHY??), but I could call this “Citrus in a Row”. Nope, too obvious. “Citrus Variety” is boring.
Any ideas for me??
I know these aren’t just generic fruits, but the alliteration was too big of a temptation to resist.
All these orange oil paintings are for sale at the Mural Gallery in Exeter, whose address might be 121 South E Street, and hours might begin at 11 a.m. but not on Tuesday, possibly not on Wednesday. Maybe you’d better call 559-592-3160 before just showing up, because clearly, I do not have solid information other than the fact that there is a boatload of great art in that tiny building.
Phew. Take a breath, Central California Artist.
These have more detail and are larger than the 4 small orange paintings I showed you last Friday.
That one is almost finished. It could be considered finished, but I don’t think it is as good as it could be. I’ll need to contemplate it for awhile.
This one will require quite a bit of drawing with my paintbrushes. I like to draw with pencils, and I like to draw with my paintbrushes when they cooperate.
It helps to see the shapes more accurately when things are upside down. This is not an option when painting from real life. Thank goodness I am a studio painter.
The blue bowl and its reflection will be a good challenge. I am really liking this one so far.
There are a lot of orange paintings to get done, dried, scanned, and distributed to two different places. Let’s go!
Four down, two to go.
Altogether now, “These will look better after they are dry and always look better in person”.