"Pansies and Fish Vase"

"Pansies and Fish Vase" -- oil on canvas 24x24" -- Margie Guyot

Ah, pansies!  I love them!  The colors are irresistable.  I had to buy a whole flat of them, in every color, a couple weeks ago at the local nursery, Pine Hill.  They remind me of the huge pansy gardens in Nice, on the French Riviera.  I was there in 1994, attending a workshop with Janet Fish.  Seeing pansies reminds me of that wonderful ten days.

My friend Janet Kondziela gave me the vintage tablecloth when she took her annual vacation to Charlevoix -- in February.  Most people find February the month when they'd most like to LEAVE Charlevoix, but Janet finds it very restful. 

The fish vase was a resale shop find, as was the rippled glass bowl.  I love a good challenge -- and wrinkles and reflections are so addictive!  Years ago I realized that I enjoyed painting difficult things (such as wrinkles or reflections) because I could eventually figure them out.  I'd set up a tough still life and just get totally absorbed in it.  The rest of the world could be going to hell in a handbasket, but by golly -- I could figure out "my own little world".   Although I feel so powerless to stop a war, I do feel a certain sense of accomplishment in being able to paint a darn wrinkle!

"Apple Pie"

"Apple Pie" -- oil on canvas 6x6" -- Margie Guyot

The model slice I used did NOT look like this: it was a $3 slice I'd bought at a popular roadside restaurant, south of Charlevoix, Michigan.  In reality, the apple filling was more like semi-hardened glue.  Not juicy at all.  I'm sure you know how that is!

Having grown up in a family of dedicated pie-eaters, I know about how pies should be: flaky crusts and juicy fillings, all made from scratch.  And yes, I do know how to make a good pie.  But I've been far too busy to bake this spring.  So most of this pie was painted from memory.

I painted all afternoon in the studio, doing a total of about 10 pie paintings (6 of those were blueberry).  Little paintings, all 6x6", unframed, are kind of popular.  And their sales enable me to do some extra home improvement projects.  I still do large paintings, but have cut back on those a bit, as people haven't had the cash to spend these past few years. 

Back to the studio today for more pie!  Hmmmm....  maybe lemon meringue?  Strawberry?

"Blueberry Pie"

"Blueberry Pie" -- oil on canvas 6x6" -- Margie Guyot

This pie was painted entirely from memory.  I'd been meaning to paint a slice of blueberry pie for at least a year, but all the pies I saw in the stores looked NASTY.  You know what I mean: crusts like cardboard, filling stiff and glue-like.  Ugh.  But I've been too busy to take a few hours and bake one.   My family was a big pie-eating family and my grandma taught me how to bake pies, so I know what a mouth-watering pie looks like!

I like to paint lots of 6x6" unframed oil paintings.  They're relatively inexpensive and tourists like them.  Of course I really enjoy painting large paintings, too, but they're harder to sell in this economic climate.

Yesterday afternoon I set aside my yardwork (it's endless!) and sequestered myself in the studio and painted pie after pie.  I did 10 in all: 6 blueberry and 4 more apple.  Pies are so much more enjoyable to paint than cupcakes --- all those doggone frosting swirls -- oy vey!

Working from memory, I made sure all my pies look juicy -- the way a pie should look!

"White Cattaleya Orchid"

"White Cattelaya Orchid" -- oil on canvas 30x40" -- Margie Guyot



Why settle for nondescript, insipid houseplants when you can have orchids?  That's my philosopy.  I'd bought this plant about 15 years ago at a garage sale in Birmingham, Michigan.  It was big then and kept getting "huger and huger" (pardon my English!).  It'd become so pot-bound it quit flowering.  Oy vey -- the mess of untangling the mad snarl of roots!  I separated it into about 5 plants a couple years ago and now each plant is a flowering fool!

Besides being beautiful and stupendous, these orchids have a faint, sweet scent.  And my house sure can use some sweet scents.  I've got 4 cats.

But you want to read about this painting!  OK, ok.  Before I did this particular painting, I did a close-up view of the orchid.  But I thought it was depressing.  It looked too trite!  I just cannot abide trite.  No, what this wonderful plant needed was to be be featured in its full glory: sprawling madly across a larger canvas!

But how should I arrange it?  What color scheme?  More and more, thinking about the overall color scheme is something I consider first of all.  I laid back on my studio couch, feeling agitated, thinking color...color...color....  Then my eyes fell on a painting I did last year, all in shades of gold and lavender.  Aha!

And since Easter is on the horizon, I wanted to include (finally!) an old, metal cake pan in the shape of a lamb.  It'd been another resale shop find.  And a conch shell -- how Easter-y is that?  Ha ha. 

I love that silk shawl!  The fringe on the edges almost gives is an "in flight" sort of feel, like the Magic Orchid is out for a cruise. 

In the background, on the upper left, is an antique yellow dish that I love.  It's got a "busy" pattern to it and casts the most interesting shadows.  Next to it is an antique ice cream dish. 

I love painting shells!  Maybe I should have moved nearer to the ocean.  Did I ever mention that I collect conch shells?  I pick them up whenever they show up in garage sales, up here in northern Michigan.  One of mine I bought in Peru, when I was on a 3 week excursion into the wilds, studying the shamans.  That particular shell was cut at the tip.  It can be tooted, like a trumpet.  I tooted on that thing all along the Inca Trail.  Ah, but that's another story.

Besides the conch, there's an abalone shell in the center, by the orchid.  I don't know how well the colors came through in this photo (or on  your monitor), but it's one of my most fun, favorite things to paint!  I could just fall into those iridescent colors!  I could totally zone out into abstraction when painting that.

I had to use silk daffodils in this painting.  Mine were still coming up at the time of painting.  Am I forgiven?

Purple Tulips

"Purple Tulips" -- oil on canvas 22x28" -- Margie Guyot

Some people might think I'd lost my mind -- all that color!   But I was in the mood to paint COLOR!  Last weekend we'd had a 16" snowfall and were without power for 48 hours.  It was dark.  It was gloomy.  By some miracle my studio stayed about 50 degrees, even without the heating system.  I had to bundle up a bit more to work out there.

So the sun came out.  The snow has melted.  Well, mostly melted.  Robins are singing; crocuses are peeking up.  I was in the mood to do cartwheels across the front lawn.  That is, if I could do cartwheels.  In lieu of doing cartwheels, I decided to yank out the most colorful piece of fabric I could find and do something with the bunch of purple tulips I'd bought last week.  They were about to give out, so I had to paint fast.

But the painting wasn't challening enough.  Why not make it really interesting and add the acrylic box with the butterflies and the pink glass bowl?  It was damned near enough to kill me.  But even so, it was a lark, compared to sweeping, vacuuming and washing floors. 

Painting tulips is hard enough as it is.  They're always enlongating, ever so slightly.  Stick a bunch of tulips into a vase and the next day you come back, they've "grown" taller.  Or swooped lower, which was what these did. 

Purple is a tough color to try to paint.  Almost impossible to mix it and not have it turn out some muddy shade of reddish-brown.  I think I need to buy every shade of purple & violet they make.

This painting is a prime example of why Oil Painters of America seems to hate everything I do.  It's too gaudy.  Not brown enough.  After years of being a member and paying dues and entering their shows, I finally dropped them.  Why was I trying to paint something they might like?  It was pathetic. No, I finally decided life is too short to spend all my time doing things to try to win somebody else's approval.  

"Tulips in Blizzard"

"Tulips in Blizzard" -- oil on canvas 30x30" -- Margie Guyot

After days of temperatures in the 40's, we had a surprise blizzard over the first weekend of March.  I measured 16" of snowfall in my yard.  It'd started Friday night around 4.  I had to play a gig in Charlevoix from 5 to 7.  While we played, we all watched the snow falling heavily.  The drive home on 31 was slippery!  I drove slowly and was so happy to crawl into my nice, warm bed!  The heavy, wet snow piled up on trees and caused branches to break off, hitting power lines.  Thousands were without power for 2 - 3 days (or more).  My power was out from 9:30 Friday night until about 9:30 Sunday night.

Amazing, the things you can do without electricity!  No email, no Facebook -- you have loads of free time.  There was no heat in my studio, but it's insulated very well.  I threw on an extra jacket and decided to squeeze out another painting from this bunch of tulips.  I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did.

Instead of doing something very colorful, I wanted to show the view from my studio windows this time.  And there are no strong sunlight and shadow patterns.  It was dark and gloomy all weekend.

To be on the safe side, I carried in all my boxes of oil paints, in case my studio froze.

Tulips seem to get more interesting as they age, petals flopping open, stems twisting and looping.  The foliage was contorting into bizarre shapes.  But I love a good challenge.  What else was there to do?  I couldn't even leave my driveway.  No Internet.  No phone, no TV.  My plow guy was running behind.  He finally showed up Sunday afternoon -- with tales of his own to tell!

When the power came back Sunday night at 9:30, I almost threw on my coat and drove down to the Edison bucket truck (on the corner) to give them some beers and kiss their boots!  But I didn't have any beers, doggone it.

"Tulips on Orange Batik Shawl"

"Tulips on Orange Batik Shawl" -- oil on canvas 24x24" -- Margie Guyot

Surprisingly, cut tulips seem to last a lot longer than I'd expected.  And they get more and more interesting as they age, with leaves twisting and the blossoms leaning and opening wider.  Why throw them out? 

For an interesting challenge, I decided to set them upon a bright orange batik shawl I'd snagged at a rummage sale.  Some people might find this garish, but I loved it.  It's a bright bit of "fire" in an otherwise dark, gloomy Michigan winter.

One trick I discovered about painting fabric wrinkles is to use Liquin and paint in the "hills and valleys" in the solid background color.  In a day or so the surface will be dry enough to paint in the printed design.  I didn't always know this.  Felt like a genius when I finally figured it out!

And no, it still didn't make things much easier for painting wrinkled fabrics --- only a bit quicker!  But what else is there to do up here in winter?  I refuse to pay for TV (so I don't have any).  And housecleaning is SUCH a drag.  You clean and the next day everything's trashed again.  Might as well sit and play around with colors!

"Tulips and Blue Glass Bowl"

"Tulips and Blue Glass Bowl" -- oil on canvas 20x16" -- Margie Guyot

I found these tulips at Meijer's and just loved the color!  The blue glass bowl came from an antique store in Elk Rapids.  As soon as I saw it, I knew it would be exciting in a painting.  The sun came out for one day, an exciting event in itself.  We see it so rarely in winter up here in NW Michigan.

 It's surprising how challenging it is to draw in and paint the tulip leaves!  Mixing the right shades of green was a challenge as well!  Once cut and put into water, tulips continue to grow -- and change.   But I've learned to compare the difficulty of painting something with the difficulty of painting cupcake frosting swirls (my big project last year).  I figure if I could control my panic with frosting swirls, anything else would be somewhat easier.

It's like comparing the difficulty of tasks with the difficulty of working on the Line at Ford Motor Company for 30 years!  Now THAT was hard work!

Stay tuned for more tulips.... 

"Banks Twp Park - Ice Chunks"

"Banks Twp. Park - Ice Chunks" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas 8x16" -- Margie Guyot

It was another glorious, sunny day here, so I decided to venture up to Banks Township Park.  Pulled on my long underwear and ultra-heavyweight down coat.  And this time I wore hiking boots with ice grippers.  Unlike Barnes Park (see previous post), Banks Park lacks a steep hill, allowing the icy winds to sail right along. 

See that distant little point sticking out?  That's where I hiked to paint.  There's a rocky point that juts out and after my experience of falling into a crevass, I wanted to play it safe and stick to the rocks.  And I was so glad I'd bundled up.  The wind was brutally cold out there.

Things always are exciting out on that point.  I set my gear down and walked all around, looking for the most amazing spot.  What I loved was the little area of ice chunks that had floated into a cove.  Everything was freezing shut again.  The colors were subtle, but I was fascinated by this view.  Again, I'm looking south, towards Elk Rapids and Traverse City. 

One of the advantages to using a Soltek easel is the sides flip up, allowing the palette surface to be shaded.  Trying to mix colors on a palette that's in bright sunlight is pretty difficult.
After finishing this one I hiked around a little, but when my boot fell into another small crevass, I decided to quit when I was ahead!

"Barnes Park, Looking South, Looking North"

"Barnes Park, Looking South" -- plein air field study -- oil on birch panel 8x10" -- Margie Guyot

Photo by Babs Young: view from the shore

Babs Young clambered over the snow and ice to get a closeup of me in action.

This has been the strangest winter.  Unusually warm, with very little snow.  Most days have been dark and gloomy.  With such dreary sights, I haven't felt much like going out plein air painting.  But a few days ago (2/19/12), the sun came out and I thought what the heck!  I'm going down to Barnes Park (in Eastport) and see what the ice looks like. 

I pulled on my Arctic-weight boots and long underwear.  It may be a balmy 40 degrees back at the house, but it can be drastically cooler out on the ice.  That wind can just howl across the ice.  But luckily, it was quite pleasant.  To my left (out of the photo) is a very steep hill, which helped radiate the sun's heat. 

Having grown up in Iowa, the sight of ice pileups on the Great Lakes always amazes me.  After finishing the 8x10" view, looking south towards Traverse City, I gathered up my gear and walked north on the ice a block or two.

All the warm weather affected the snow and ice.  After finishing my second painting of the view looking north, I packed everything up and was making my way back when my left foot fell into a hidden crevass.  Yikes -- it was a struggle to pull out.  It was all I could do to yank my boot out!  I'd gone in up to my knee.  It was a good thing I didn't twist my ankle.  But my painting fell face-down into the snow:

melting snow on "Barnes Park, Looking North"

"Barnes Park, Looking North" -- (repaired) plein air field study on stretched canvas 8x16" -- Margie Guyot

OK, the view is looking more northwest, with the Leelanau Peninsula in the distance.  Northport is right at the tip.  After leaving my snow-covered painting dry overnight in the studio, I was able to repair the damage.  

"Grapes and Pink Glass Bowl"

"Grapes and Pink Glass Bowl" -- oil on canvas 30x30" -- Margie Guyot

When I set up this still life, it looked so complicated, I didn't know if I could pull it off.  Could I finish it before the grapes rotted?  I'm always challenging myself, though, so I just ignore my fears and start.  And how do I start?  Always with something I know: using a yardstick, I lightly draw in the crosshairs onto the canvas.  Looking through my little viewfinder, I try to determine just where the center  point is.  Seemed to me the center point was on the plastic bag.  I put a little mark of paint right there.

Before I figured out the trick of marking the center point, I'd have trouble fitting everything into the still life.  Half of my composition would run off the canvas!  I'm always looking through the viewfinder, trying to estimate whether something is 1/2 or 1/3 of the way up or down, right or left.  And I do a lot of measuring, using my paintbrush at arm's length, comparing distances and sizes to objects.  In this painting, my "unit of measure" was the green apple at the upper right.  Everything related to the size of that apple. 

It's a good way to control one's panic, comparing everything in a painting to one object's size. 

Recently I was given 2 young cats to watch for a friend for the next 6 months.  Of course I'm figuring it will be a permanent thing.  The kitties were fascinated by the grapes in the plastic bags.  They kept trying to fish grapes out and bat them around.  Every afternoon when I quit painting, I had to cover the setup with a tablecloth to keep the kitties from destroying it.  And I always clean off my palette and park it way up high, where Flower and Butterfly can't walk all over it.

I've found resale shops sometimes have very colorful (and ghastly!) silk scarves, quite cheap.  I liked the purple and red scarf.  I wouldn't be caught dead in it, but it added something to the  painting.   The bright reds of the scarf were echoed in the red geranium blossoms.  My studio windowsills are lined with geraniums all winter, where they bloom like mad.  

"Polka Dot Glasses"

"Polka Dot Glasses"  --  oil on canvas 24x24"  -- Margie Guyot

Last weekend the sun finally came out!  It may seem trivial to you, but up here along the coastline in northern Michigan, it's a real event in winter.  I'd been trying to think of something inspiring and exciting to paint when I saw the sunshine hitting this scarf and glasses.    Wowee!  I started whooping and jumping around, all jazzed at the sight of the cast-shadows and brilliant colors.  I'm not totally sure how this photo turned out, though.  I'm using a new Photoshop program, on a new computer, and it's been a hair-tearing experience lately.

But enough whining!  I quickly set up this arrangement on my table in front of the south-facing windows and drew it in like a fiend.  Sunshine in winter is very fleeting.  I didn't know if it would shine again until May.  So I captured as much of it I could. 

The next day it was cloudy (of course), but I continued working on the drawing.  One thing I picked up fairly recently was the trick of using straight lines to establish obelisks.  Circles and obelisks are just the devil for most of us to draw!  Starting out with just 4 basic lines to establish the size limit of an obelisk really seems to help.  Little by little, add small straight lines to finish it off.  That trick has really helped me.

The third day the sun popped out again and I wailed away with the paints, nailing the shadows.  I put color notes on some of the larger, "easier", areas, such as the plain borders, saving them for when the dark and gloom returned. 

Luckily, the sun came out again the next day, allowing me to see enough to be able to finish this painting with some more shadow pattern details.

And if you're a painter, if you want a challenge, just try painting a doggone daffodil!  Yikes.

"Mardi Gras Pumpkin"

"Mardi Gras Pumpkin" -- oil on canvas 16x20" -- Margie Guyot



My friend, Pete Peterson, gave me this pumpkin a few weeks ago.  He's bought it in a farm stand in Traverse City.  Neither of us knows what variety it is.  It's one of the strangest-looking pumpkins I've seen!  I'm struggling to learn to use Photoshop Elements and I don't think I've adjusted the color quite right in this photo.  Or it could be the monitor, but anyway --- you can get some idea of the painting.

I liked the bits of peach and purply-mauve tones in the pumpkin.  I loved all the folds and netting.  It seemed to need something "regal-looking" to sit on for a painting.  This is an old, paisley scarf I'd picked up somewhere.  Some of the golds and mauves were echoed in the pumpkin's maze of netting. 

I'll save the seeds and will try to grow more this summer.  If the doggone deer will allow it!

"Oranges on a Bluebird Cloth"

"Oranges on a Bluebird Cloth" -- oil on canvas 24x24" -- Margie Guyot

I found this old tablecloth at a resale shop somewhere.  It's all hand-sewn and I think it's some kind of silkscreen print, possibly from Japan.  The blues are vey delicate, ranging from pale to deeper blue, plus some gray areas.  I'd been all set to paint in butterflies, but golly gee wilikers -- to my surprise, they were little bluebirds!

Winters up here along the northwest coastline of lower Michigan are typically dark and dreary.  We might have sunshine only 1 day each month.  I have my still life setups next to a south-facing window, hoping to catch some sense of sunlight.  Many painters swear by north light, but I love the strong contrasts of sunlight and shadow.  I didn't get any sunny days while painting this, so the shadows are very soft.

This painting is another example of how I love to do paintings in predominantly contrasting colors.  Life is just too short to stick to beiges and browns!  I guess there's a part of me that's like a tropical bird, sitting high in a tree, dressed in gawdy, screaming reds and blues and greens, shouting "More!  MORE!!!!"

"Honeycrisps #2"

"Honeycrisps #2" -- oil on canvas 24x24" -- Margie Guyot

This is my favorite variety of apple!  It tastes like its name: sweet and crisp.  Lately I've been on a pumpkin/gourd/apple kick.  The most recent painting, "Granny Smiths", featured green apples on a red and white tablecloth.  I'm a huge fan of paintings done in contrasting colors, so I had to follow that painting with red apples on a green tablecloth.

This tablecloth was an antique store find.  When I pulled it out, I hesitated because of the gold.  But the longer I looked at the honeycrisps, the more yellow and gold I saw in them.  So I think it was a good match.

My studio is in NW Michigan, along the coastline of Lake Michigan.  It's winter here and the skies are overcast about 98% of the time.  Summers are a joy, but winters are pretty gloomy.  So it's a rare thing to see strong, bright sunlight and shadow patterns in my still lifes -- unless I invent them.

Years ago when I was visiting galleries out West, I was very impressed with the paintings of the American Impressionists and master painters of the Old West.  They were so good at painting cloth!  I'd stand right up to the paintings, studying how they painted fabric folds.  More than once I set off an alarm by standing too close.  But at least I got a good look at how they did it.

I always love challenging myself, so I never shy away from painting wrinkled, mussed-up tablecloths!  Some people take photos and then project and trace, but I work from life.  I do use a little viewfinder to help compose the painting.  There are generally a lot of wipe-outs when I'm laying in the design, but I'm used to that, so I don't panic.  Heck, it's more fun that shoveling out the chicken coop!

I must admit, though, the pattern of this tablecloth was about to drive me mad!

"Granny Smiths"

"Granny Smiths" -- oil on canvas 24x24" -- Margie Guyot

I had the urge to paint another apple still life.  This time I wanted to do something with Granny Smith apples, since I'd painted quite a few Honeycrisps lately.  I love the green!  If you've been following my blog at all, you may have noticed I love painting vintage tablecloths as well.  And I don't shy away from painting folds and wrinkles, either.  What else is there to do, anyway?  Iron sheets?  Wash walls?  No, I'd sooner be figuring out how to paint things!

Often I'll decide on the color scheme before I set up a still life.  Years ago I was in a gallery out West when I realized that the paintings that seemed to jump off the wall were done in contrasting colors: red and green.  Orange and blue.  Lavender and yellow.  I love bright colors and a "this one's jumping off the wall!" type feeling, so much of the time I will consciously decide on contrasting colors before I set things up.

I've used this red and white tablecloth in several other paintings.  I snagged it in an antique store in Traverse City a year or two ago. 

The apples -- I'd planned on buying a bag of them, but the bagged ones all looked too green.  Like they weren't ripe yet.  Super-green, gill-grabbers!  So I had to pick out individual ones, going for the more pale ones at Meijer's.  A couple had faint tinges of red (all the better!).

And it was such a crazy week to try to paint!  A 6" snowfall, 2 rehearsals (I'm in 3 different musical groups), plus I taught 2 art classes and had art show opening at the Dennos Museum in Traverse City.  There were constant interruptions, but sometimes that's good, too.  It can be helpful to step away from one's painting, then come back to it to "see it with a fresh eye".

What's next?  A red apple with green tablecloth?  Possibly!

"Ford Flex in Snow"

"Flex in Snow" -- plein air field study -- 8x10" oil on birch panel -- Margie Guyot

Setup for "Flex in Snow", January 13, 2012

This has been the strangest winter.  Up until January 13th, we'd only had 1" of snow.  Many days were 40 degrees (or more).  I was hoping we would get some snowfall so I could do some paintings of cedar trees in the snow, ideally on a bright, sunny day, so there would be blue shadows.  I haven't seen this combination yet, but it could still happen.

So last Friday I woke up to 6" of snow.  It was still snowing here and I was so excited, I wanted to paint it.  From past experience, I've learned it's next to impossible to paint when the snow is falling.  It ends up on your palette, mixing in with the oil paints.  Just an icky mess!  

The whole front side of my house has a porch with an overhanging roof, so I set up my Soltek easel and painted this view of my Ford Flex.  Keep your fingers crossed for a sunny day + snow!

Oh -- I get asked this all the time: how is your Flex in the snow?  Great!  This one's got AWD and I've never had a problem.  I managed to get out of my long driveway, through the pileup at the end that the snowplow leaves, and out onto the highway.  And there's lots of cargo room for transporting big paintings. 

"Lettuce and Tomatoes"

"Lettuce and Tomatoes" -- oil on canvas 16x20" -- Margie Guyot

This is the first painting I did after the holidays, right when everybody's thinking about diets and salads!  I'd just finished a still life recently that had this same green bowl in it.  It was such a "hoot" to do, I had to do another one.  Don't you love the greenish shadow it casts?  I'm fascinated by glass (although this bowl was really plastic!) and how it distorts shapes.  Why scrub floors when you can paint glass?

We rarely get sunny days in winter up here, so there is hardly ever a true, strong sense of shadow shapes -- only a fuzzy suggestion. 

Another thing that's captured my fascination lately has been the colors of the shadows.  It seems the local color of an object (such as the carrots) affects its shadow.  Notice the faint tinge of orange next to the carrots?  And the faint tinge of red next to the red pepper?  The cold and winter snows help eliminate distractions up here in the north so we artists can notice things we might otherwise miss.

"Honeycrisp"

"Honeycrisp" -- oil on canvas 18x24" -- Margie Guyot

My favorite apple variety, the Honeycrisp!  With the wind howling and snow blowing, it seemed to be the perfect way to spend a few days, holing up in my studio, painting apples.  That's a resale shop glass bowl.  I'd used it in a a painting right before this.  It's fun to paint -- I like the way it distorts.

Honeycrisp apples may not be the prettiest apples out there, but they're the tastiest.  They always sell out before any of the other varieties.  

Most of the time it's overcast in winter up this way (northern Michigan).  But one day the sun peeked out for about 5 minutes, and I saw small bits of sunlight hitting the table, filtering through the row of geraniums on the windowsill.  I thought the little spots of sunlight added a bit of charm.

About 99% of this painting was done with just one brush: a #6 Silverbrush flat.  It's a great brush.  Holds its knife-edge, allowing me to make long, thin strokes.  I'm not very fond of cleaning brushes, so that's probably why I will paint all day long with one brush.  OK, I did have to use one more, a Windsor-Newton Series 7 Kolinsky sable, only to sign my name.  

Some artists are very careful about cleaning brushes.  One friend gently wipes them with walnut oil, never turpentine, certainly never soap or detergent.  I guess I'm horribly brutal: I douse them with Dawn dish soap and scrub them mercilessly until they come clean.  And sometimes I add a drop of soap to the bristles and re-shape them, allowing them to dry that way.  I don't know who's right about this, but I guess the brush manufacturers like to sell me more brushes!

Apples and Gourds

"Apples and Gourds" -- oil on canvas 30x30" -- Margie Guyot

As soon as I began disassembling "Pumpkins and Gourds" (the most recent painting), I stopped and thought why not use most of the same objects, only re-arranged?  You probably have guessed by now that I'm fascinated by gourds!  I had a bag of honeycrisp apples in the refrigerator.  Glad I pulled them out, too.  Two of them were starting to spoil.  So the chickens got those.  And I can't remember where I got the hand-woven grass mat.  Either it was the one I bought in the jungle in Panama or else it's a garage-sale find (one somebody else bought in a jungle somewhere).  And what would one of my still lifes be without good-old turkey feathers? 

I just loved the way the glass bowl distorted things!  Not much going on up here, TV-wise, and house-cleaning is so boring, I'd much rather be trying to figure out how to paint distortions!  And it being winter, I have no distractions from gardening chores.  Although the chickens and rabbits (and cats!) do require a certain amount of attention each day.

I wasn't entirely sure I could do a satisfactory rendition of that grass mat!  Thank goodness I didn't allow myself to go into a panic.  Just about anything can be figured out if you stay calm!

One thing that surprised me was the beautiful green shadow that the green "glass" bowl cast, in the upper right.  It may not show up well in this photo, but it is noticeable in person.  And another surprise to me was the faint reddish tones in the shadows cast by the red apples.  This painting was done under natural light, next to a south-facing window.  It was overcast the entire time I painted; no strong sunlight/shadow patterns.  Maybe the reddish tones only showed up because of the softer light.  Maybe they would have disappeared in strong sunlight.