December 24 - Persimmon Painting and Cats

Almost midnight, and time to send out the daily painting for Christmas. Well, not really, as persimmons aren't what the season is all about, however, it was "on the plate" so to speak.
This is a quickly done second pass on these fellows, and I learned something really important. If you use fresh fruit, did you know you have a limited amount of time to capture their essence before dehydration or a curious cat comes in to change things? I do, however, have more persimmons, so after the holiday tomorrow, I'll cut and set out another set and see if I can't find my way again. Cat decided they were more interesting if put on the floor. That's Pesto, one of two studio cats. I've painted her a couple of times

December 23 - Persimmons

"Cut Persimmons" Lesson time, while the chaos of the holiday comes thru, and takes a lot of valuable time from the studio. I'm waiting for more information on one commission I need to do tomorrow, and so I'll hold off and do this still life in two steps while I wait. This one's an acrylic 4 x 6 from a live setup of some cut persimmons on a cutting board. I love the temperature changes from the lit sides to the shadow sides. You can see I paint in the larger shapes, similar to a Matisse later style. The lights are opaque and the shadows are transparent (not on the fruit, but definitely on the cutting board and background. You can see the canvas texture easily through those areas. The background and shadows are done with burnt umber and ultramarine blue. I work up to the cadmiums in the lights on these beauties. Here's a digital of the fruit, which you can see I've changed a bit.