One and a Half Pears

"Pear"
oil on canvas
6" x 6"

"Pear Half"
oil on canvas
6" x 6"

Two new small alla prima paintings from this week. I'm really enjoying playing around with the color in the background on these. I bought a package of pastel colored card stock at my local Wal-Mart. I'm simply using the sheets of card stock behind and underneath my subjects. I particularly loved how the cut pear looks with the blue background. I think that I'm just getting started with these!

Pear au Naturel

"Seated Nude"

colored pencil

10" x 7"

Well I'm back from a little fall vacation and back to the drawing board as well. As you can see, I'm still playing around with the personable pears. Some of these smaller drawings that I've been doing lately will be headed to M.A. Doran's gallery in Tulsa for the December Small Works show.

I really need to start painting more! I think that I spent as many hours layering the back ground on this small drawing as I spent on the pear and board together. Those nice smooth backgrounds are definitely quicker to do with paint than with pencils. Hmmm... mixed media would be one solution. Perhaps I just need to play with those gouache paints some more...

Our vacation, by the way, included a trip to the Grand Canyon where I took many pictures. I keep taking landscape pictures and drawing still lifes. Some kind of disconnect, perhaps? The solution could very well be just more hours in the studio so I can do it all.