I haven’t set specific parameters for my daily paintings, but I have a vague idea that I’d rather not paint items belonging to this apartment. I love the place, but it’s a furnished sublet, and somehow I don’t want to paint things that aren’t mine — not because I think it’s unethical, but it just doesn’t feel resonant to use things I didn’t choose myself. So that leaves me with my own possessions (the ones I travel with) and whatever consumables I bring in (food, flowers, etc). I’m not typically a fruit-and-flowers kind of painter but I thought there was a possibility for a seasonal theme with this project. Hence the gourd on day one, followed by yesterday’s crabapples.
These are Robinson crabapples, bought at the farmers’ market some weeks ago when I couldn’t resist their winey color. They’re starting to shrivel a bit now but the color is as deep as ever. This painting took me an hour and sixteen minutes.
Here are the crabapples hanging out with the previous day’s gourd:
And a shot of the entire sheet of paper, with a pencil thrown in for scale:
I paint to music whenever possible. While making this picture I listened to a lot of different eras of jazz. Selections from the playlist:
- Thelonious Monk, “Epistrophy.” Just awesome.
- Sarah Vaughan, “Whatever Lola Wants.” Try getting dressed for a date while listening to this one!
- 1949 Metronome All-Stars (featuring a lot of famous names), “Victory Ball.” (Never mind the little introductory fanfare on the video.) So cool.
- Louis Armstrong, “Gut Bucket Blues.” From 1925.
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Oh they’re smaller than I thought! Thanks for putting in the pencil. 🙂 Very good. Though are they really that dark colored or is that shadowing? They look like they should be dark cherries or something!
Hee. They’re small, but I’m used to working even smaller, so having a big fresh sheet like this makes me feel giddy with possibility. 🙂
They are indeed about the color of Bing cherries, amazingly enough. I think they’ve gotten darker since I first bought them, but I didn’t take any pics then so I can’t say for sure (and they don’t have them at the market anymore).