Pumpkin Amiss: the March 25th update on Still Life #3

The great pumpkin in my still life set up is history. Caput. It began to cave in on itself from the top so it had to go. May it rest in peace, along with Apple substitute #3. Unfortunately, now is not the season of pumpkins so it's been replaced with a brick to keep the basket up right (as you'll see from the second photo below). The interior of the basket no longer reflects the deep orange so when I was painting the interior weaving with a brown/pale yellow mixture, I added some orange as well.

Post-pumpkin, not everything is in the same place as it once was. The pine cones have fallen off the ledge more than once. The basket itself is not on precisely the same angle it was: I now see less on the left side than I used to. I'm also getting confused about the shape at the top of the basket, so I'm planning to correct that tonight by angling it in more sharply as it reaches the top of the panel and make it disappear into the darkness. For the weaving itself, I'm just trying to capture a sense of what it would be if it were my main focus, and then I'll blur the details so they don't take away from the painting's centre.

John W. Portrait nearing completion

I took another pass at this portrait two Sundays ago, brightening up the blues in the lower background and repainting the areas around the eyes, cheeks, and forehead. On my to do list to finish up: getting the colour right in the nose and ear; cleaning up the edges of the T-Shirt, strengthening the frames of the glasses, and softening edges in various places.

March 1 update on Still Life #3

Things are beginning to smell and a fine web of mould now coats the pumpkin... so I don't know how much longer I'll be able to keep the pumpkin in place. Yet its bright orange is such an influencer on the colour of the objects around it.

I've finished painting the first pine cone, the one sitting in the basket. I'm pleased with the colours I came up with but my drawing was not as good as it should have been. It's sitting a little "pinched" in shape.  Yet, I'm abandoning the accuracy of shapes. The pumpkin itself has shrunk about 10% in the last three months, so it's height/width are no longer serving as good guides for measuring the placement of anything else.

Only the basket has been a constant. I'm now beginning to add more detail in the weaving.

Closeup:

Full view:

John W. Portrait

Here's a portrait in progress of my friend, John Willard, quiltmaker, in Burlington. John posed patiently for me on his back porch in June of last year while I tried (and failed) both plein air and painting live from a model at the same time.

I've included a series of images which end with the photo I decided to use as a reference. There's still much to be done, including adjustments to the mouth, ears, nose, etc...

March 3 update... Here I'm trying out some darker colours but miss the brighter, lighter blues I once had  in the background. Yet, the colour from the photo is being badly influenced by my red studio walls. The proof: immediately below is the painting taken again at the other end of my home studio.

March 1 update with a different pallette that includes Venetian Red.

Early stage with an attempt to warm up the figure, July 22, 2012

Dry brush drawing, early July 2012 

The original reference photo, June 2012