SOLD - 30 Things about me - Day 7



Lemons again!
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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30 things about me #7 - I love all things citrus 

I love all things citrussy. My room freshener, car freshener, hand wash, soap and everything else is in a citrus flavour, and mostly lemons. It makes my shopping way easy, I head straight to the aisle with citrus flavoured things and pick up a few. No pick and choose. I love the feeling of instant freshness that it imparts. While cooking too, I squeeze in some lemon juice into a lot of dishes to add a little zing. I guzzle lemon and orange juices too and I don't think I am ever getting tired of it.

The colours in the image are not accurate as I have taken the picture under artificial light. Since I am away the whole day, I will not be able to post a daylit image today. Will get that done over the weekend. Can't believe we are about 25% done already, yay! :)

Lemons and Glass - Original Still Life in Oils

I have always wanted to paint plain glass. To get the transparency and "glass effect" with as minimal strokes as possible is something I find endlessly fascinating. I seek inspiration from several artists who are so good at it. This is my first ever attempt at painting transparent glass. 

Lemons and Glass
Oil on board, 18 by 24 cms (approx. 7 by 9.5 inches)
$75.00 + shipping
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One of the days when I was cleaning my pantry and throwing out unused bottles etc, I thought this one would make good practice to paint glass. I wanted to keep the set up as simple as possible, so did not spend too much time fretting over it. The lemons and my knife being favourite objects, just found their way into the set up.:-) 

SOLD - Stripey Jar - Original Still Life in Oils

Stripey Jar
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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SOLD - Glowing Green - Original Still Life in Oils

An alternate title for this would have been "Racing against the sun" and how apt would that be! I usually set up my still lifes under artificial lights, so that I can go about my work and get to painting in between free slots. This morning too, I was about to do the same. Pull down the shutters and switch on the lights. Just when I placed this jar, however, I had a change of mind. The jar when directly lit in sunlight was so gorgeous that I had to paint it. So there it was, a sunlit still life. 

Now whenever I race against the sun light, I am in a perennial panic mode. My mind only works on that I have to complete it before the light changes direction. I sometimes do not even think if I am mixing my colours right and so on. Several instances today I discovered that my values were a little off and remixed. If I came out of the panic mode and spent time thinking calmly, then I would actually save time on these little things. I am yet to get there. The biggest positive however is that I do not even think of over working my paintings. And that is my main motive to work in this way.

Glowing Green
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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There was a clearance sale at a shop in my town a couple of months ago. I went and picked up a loot of these ceramic pieces. I love them. They will be used in more works very soon.

SOLD - Juicy Gossip - Original Still Life in Oils

I wanted to paint something with bigger shapes, not worrying much about details instead focusing on the values and colors. And the lemons were just ready! Changed the direction of the light to get  some bigger shadows. 

Do the lemons look like they are chatting with each other? Hence the title! :-)

Juicy Gossip
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches
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I also decided to challenge myself to paint 30 pieces in 30 days in April. This is painting #2. Let me see how it goes. 

SOLD - Just lemons - Original Still Life Painting in Oils

So, this makes it a dozen lemon paintings! When I started this series of lemons, it wasn't planned to be a series at all. I wanted to experiment painting from life and just picked up the stuff I had in my fridge. Though I had a few oranges, apples and lots of vegetables, the lemons just got lucky :-) It wasn't planned. After painting them on a warm background, I wanted to paint them on a cool background and so one experiment led to another and I was hooked. 

Though the lemons are fun and all that, my most favourite part to paint every single time was the knife. I love getting it to look like metal and love capturing the combination of shadows and reflections. I have no more lemons in my pantry so I think I will leave them aside for a while. I will get back to this gorgeous fruit after some time, in combination with different props. I did some sketching yesterday and I am dying to get some figures painted. :-)

Just lemons
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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Let me leave you with a collage of all the lemon paintings so far. Do you have a favourite? Let me know in the comments :-)

A dozen lemons!
All of them sold :)

SOLD - Over the top - Original Still life painting in Oils

As much as possible, I try to set up the lemons in such a way that the shadows overlap between the green and red/blue papers. It gives a lovely mix of colors in the shadows and I enjoy playing around with them. With this setup however, there is hardly any overlap. What I loved instead was the pattern formed by the shadows. I just couldn't get enough of it! 

Over the top
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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SOLD - Fractions, Reframed - Original Still Life Painting in Oils

One thing is for sure, that I will run out of titles faster than I run out of compositions. I'd rather have it this way than the other way round ;-) Decided to change the direction of the knife as I got so used to painting it in one direction. I am really pleased with this one, it could probably be my favourite of the series so far.:-) Let me know what you think! 

Fractions, Reframed
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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SOLD - One by two - Original Still Life Painting in Oils

Last week, I spotted a shop nearby that was having a clearance sale of home decor stuff. Promptly went there the next day itself and picked up a lot of ceramic vases in different shapes and colors, and some other props. I have been dying to use these things in still life set ups, but at the same time, I relish the challenge of the lemons. It gives me a chance to push myself to see what I can do, given just two lemons, a knife and two pieces of paper. The whole series is just using these things. I will try to come up with a couple of more compositions I think, after which I have a whole bunch of other subjects to paint. 

One by two
Oil on Board, 6 by 6 inches
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SOLD - Upper Berth - Original Still Life Painting in Oils

The second composition with the same set of slices generally gets done quicker. I set up this one quite fast and did not think too much about composition rules and the likes. I liked it and had to paint it. That's all! :-) 

Upper Berth
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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SOLD - Right on top - Original Still Life Painting in Oils

I wanted to do one more set up from the old set of slices, that had a full lemon and the second lemon into 4 pieces. Somehow it was not coming together even after spending an inordinate amount of time. Every time I arranged something, it did not feel right. Then I picked up one more lemon and sliced it vertically into wedges, spending a lot of time again mixing and matching. At one point there were so many lemons on my table that I thought of picking up a larger canvas! :-D 

I sort of ditched them after a while and went away to attend to other household chores. I was on the road driving when this idea popped up, that I could simplify the composition instead of adding more and more elements to it. As soon as I got home, I rushed to my studio to set it up and could quickly come up with an arrangement that I liked. Some time away always helps me when things aren't going as expected. I hope to do one more with the wedges on the red background. Hope you like this one! 

Right on top
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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Stepping down - Original Still Life Painting in Oils

When I make a single cut into a lemon, I try to make at least two paintings out of it :D Hence today's painting again is with exactly the same pieces made out of two lemons.

Stepping down
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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SOLD - Citrus fractions - Original Still Life in Oils

Red and blue, red and blue, so today it is the turn of blue again ;-)

Citrus Fractions
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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SOLD - Step it up - Original Still life Painting in Oils

Yesterday I started this new figurative piece that was all summery and nice, just the way I like it. But for some reason, I was messing up the woman's proportions and had to erase and sketch a couple of times. So I decided to leave her for another day and went back to the lemons smiling at me every time I opened the fridge :-)

Step it up
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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Let me know what you think!

SOLD - Two quarters and a half - Original Still Life painting in Oils

After the lemon still life paintings last week, I was so excited and went and bought another set of lemons. The old ones had been made to lemonade for my very patient daughter :-) But, I never got to doing the new set of lemons because I was smitten by the roosters in between. That's what happens when there are too many things to paint and just so much time! 

At the beginning, I started with two halves and a full lemon and tried to arrange them. I wasn't very excited about anything and thought I will further split one half. And now, as I was cutting through it, they were still not fully separated and looked lovely! So decided to use them as is, carefully making sure that they do not tear apart. 

Two quarters and a half
Oil on board, 6 by 6 inches
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