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.

"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.

"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!

"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.

"Kitty and Pumpkins"

"Kitty and Pumpkins" -- oil on canvas 36x36" -- Margie Guyot

Here it is, several days before Christmas, and I'm still painting pumpkins!  Well, this year I happened to find a very interesting assortment of pumpkins (and gourds).  I really hope to paint as many of them as I can before they rot. 

And what would a still life painting be without a wrinkled tablecloth and some type of glass?  I love painting both and have quite a collection.  Turkey feathers, too.  I use them often in paintings.  I love their ziggy-zaggy design -- and they're harder to paint than you'd think.

This year I did quite a number of small, 6x6" paintings, as they seemed more affordable.  They were good practice, but for me, it's frustrating.  I love doing very complex, difficult paintings -- and 6x6" is too small of an area for that.  So every once in a while I have to haul out a larger canvas to satisfy my need for "challenging projects".  My friend, Todd Warner, said that it's good to paint a large one at least once in a while to show people that we still can do it! 

I never paint from photographs.  I always use a viewfinder and draw the composition in, using a thin mix of a soft gray paint.  Sometimes there are a lot of wipe-outs, but generally it takes me about a day to draw a painting in.  Then I dive in to painting the darks, moving gradually to the medium tones and finally the very lightest tones. 

For this painting I deviated slightly.  The toughest thing for me was the distortions in the glass bowl.  Distortions in glass are very addictive for me and after having painted a few hundred little 6x6" apples and cupcakes, etc., I just had to slug away on this bowl first thing! 

Making a successful painting is learning how to control your panic!  Unlike plein air landscapes, the wonderful thing about still lifes is that they pretty much hold still.  The distortions stay still.  So that is a comfort.  I have learned to just calmly look at the shapes and paint them.  Painting shapes is all there is to it. 

Yesterday morning I'd pretty much painted in the whole thing except for the gap in the lower right.  The table edge left an empty gap.  What to put there to stop the viewer's eye from falling off into the abyss?  I was sitting here at the computer, mulling it over when Picasso, my studio cat, nudged my leg.  Aha!  I grabbed my camera and snapped his face.  Cats may be wonderful, but none of mine have ever cared to hold still.  So I did have to refer to a photograph for his portrait. 

The title: If I'd called this "Picasso and Pumpkins" it might have sent viewers into a wild goose chase, looking for "THE" Picasso, hidden somewhere. 

Blue

"Blue" -- oil on canvas 16x20" -- Margie Guyot

Last weekend my friend Ann stopped in my studio to show me her new handblown Christmas ornaments.  She suggested I use them in a painting, paired with an old blue Carnival glass bowl I had.  I'm always careful to return borrowed items as quickly as possible, so when we had a sunny day here this past Friday, I painted like a fiend!  This painting would have been impossible to do without bright sunlight flooding in.

If I had the nerve, I would have titled this "Ann's Blue Balls"....

Antique Christmas Ornaments

"Antique Ornaments" -- oil on canvas 18x24"

Until I'd painted "White Poinsettias" (see previous post), I'd never attempted painting Christmas ornaments INSIDE their boxes.  It was rather challenging, but a lot of fun.  So I wanted to do another one, only with more boxes!  I'd thought of doing a very large canvas, but considering the economy, kept this one relatively small.

Every year I yearn for those 4" pots of poinsettias.  Love them!  Alas, the stores never get them here until well past Thanksgiving.  But I wanted to include some type of holiday plant.  So I brought one of my many Christmas cactii down to the studio.  I'd never attempted to paint one -- they seem like such a wild snarl!  But nothing ventured, nothing gained.  I always love a good challenge.  And it was sunny!  I love sunny days with the strong shadow patterns.

Keep tuned for a future painting with those elusive poinsettias.... 

More Pumpkins 12x12"

 "Cheese Pumpkin" -- oil on canvas 12x12" -- Margie Guyot

"Baby Boo" -- oil on canvas 12x12" -- Margie Guyot

Once again I've fallen behind on my posts!  Life is FULL.  The weather here along the NW coastline of Michigan has been balmy, compared to previous years.  We've even had a few sunny days, which I've used to squeeze in a few more plein air paintings of the pumpkins.  I wish I could say I had grown all of them, but the deer population here would never allow it.  No, these are "store-bought" pumpkins from a farmstand in Traverse City.  I never cease to be amazed at the varieties!  All they had when I was growing up were the big jack-o-lantern types.

To paint pumpkins, I've been plopping them in the grass in front of my studio, setting up the Soltek easel and Bestbrella and sitting in my lawnchair.  Usually I stand when painting, but maybe I felt lazy.  And I always, always use a little viewfinder to see my compositions.  

Most of the time it would be sunny when I'd begin; often the clouds would roll in at some point and I'd lose my strong sunshine/shadow patterns.  And the temperature would drop very quickly.  Good thing I paint fast!   

White Poinsettias

"White Poinsettias" -- oil on canvas 36x36" -- Margie Guyot

I love painting poinsettias!  Every year about this time, I yearn to find them for sale again.  I live in a rural area in NW Michigan and about the only place you can find them is in the grocery store.  Last year when they had poinsettias "3 for $10", I snapped some up.  Red, white, pink -- I love them all!  For fun, I thought it would be an interesting challenge to paint white poinsettias on a white tablecloth.  Which I did last year.  But there was something that troubled me about the painting.  It looked too blah!

So I set it up on the easel last week and every time I'd walk by, I'd look at it, trying to imagine how to "fix" it.  Finally I got the inspiration to darken the background and paint in a box of antique ornaments.  I have lots of old ornaments (of course you'd know I love old, weird things!).  I liked the way the ornaments looked IN the box, so I painted the whole thing, as-is.  Hard?  Of yes, of course it was hard!  But it was a cold, rainy, dreary week and it was that or clean closets.  

I really like the look of the box of ornaments.  I think I'll be doing another big still life with several boxes of ornaments, maybe a couple small poinsettias, a plate of cookies -- and.....? 

Lemon Meringue Pies

 "Lemon Meringue #1" -- oil on canvas 6x6" -- Margie Guyot

  "Lemon Meringue #2" -- oil on canvas 6x6" -- Margie Guyot

  "Lemon Meringue #3" -- oil on canvas 6x6" -- Margie Guyot

  "Lemon Meringue #4" -- oil on canvas 6x6" -- Margie Guyot

 "Lemon Meringue #5" -- oil on canvas 6x6" -- Margie Guyot

Lemon meringue pies are SO much fun to paint!  But the ones I've seen in the grocery stores around here look so nasty.  I baked this one a couple days ago.  Alas, I think lemon pie wants to be eaten the same day it is made: it deteriorates so quickly!  In reality, this slice of pie looked nothing like my paintings.  At two days old, the meringue was shrinking and the crust was soggy and falling apart.  Had to use my artistic license to "pretty it up" a little.

The first painting I did showed the slice on a green Depression glass plate.  I kind of liked the colors, but thought I probably should do the rest on a plain, white background.  

I enjoy painting one view (and I always use a little viewfinder at the start), then turning it slightly for the next painting.  One thing I found rather amazing was how intensely yellow-orange the lemon filling was in spots on the shadow side.  And the meringue was quite dark when in shadow.  I just have such a blast, painting lemon pie!  Thinking of doing a few more.  

And what about eating it?  I doubt it.  It really is quite a pitiful, soggy mess!  This might be something the chickens will savor.

Blue & Orange Striped Pumpkin

 "Blue & Orange Striped Pumpkin" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas 12x12" -- Margie Guyot

This was another great find in Traverse City, at the pumpkin stand last week.  All pumpkins were marked down to $1 each.  Such a deal!  It was raining cats & dogs, but I thoroughly enjoyed wandering around, picking out such fantastical pumpkins!  Where were these beauties when I was a kid?

We had another sunny day here yesterday -- an amazing thing for NW Michigan in November -- so I set up the trusty lawn chair in the yard, my Soltek, the BestBrella (to shade the back of my canvas) and got to work.  The 4 cats came by to check on me now and then.  Miss America (who is really a "he") jumped up onto my lap at one point.  He's the one who's broken so many of my glass vases.  At least he didn't jump up onto the wet palette.  

The temperature dropped dramatically as the winds picked up at 3:30 (as they usually do), giving me me a final urgency to finish. 

Big Blue Pumpkin

"Big Blue Pumpkin" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas 12x12" -- Margie Guyot

I love all the unusual pumpkins they're coming out with these days!  When I was a kid, they only had orange.  Big ones & little ones.  So I've been going nuts, painting all the different ones I can find around here.  This one is so cool -- I love the blue tones!

We had a rare sunny day today, so I set my lawn chair out by the studio, plopped this pumpkin down and painted away.  Long about 3:30, the winds picked up and the temperature must have dropped a good ten degrees all of a sudden.  It helped "hurry up" my painting process!

Lumpy Blue Pumpkin

"Lumpy Blue Pumpkin" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas 12x12" -- Margie Guyot

Isn't this the coolest pumpkin?  I found it at a roadside stand by Traverse City a couple weeks ago.  To me, it looks a bit on the blue side.  And the lumps just made it even more amazing!  

 

At first I set it down in the green grass, where I'd painted my other pumpkins.  But since it's rather blue-ish, I thought it might look better in warmer rust tones -- dry grass and fallen leaves.  

 

The sun struggled to come out this afternoon.  And it was pretty chilly.  I had to wear my down winter coat to paint this.  The wind was pretty steady, blowing my hat off a couple times.  But at least there were no mosquitoes!

 

Right after I finished painting, the light rain started.  Great timing! 

Warty Pumpkin #2

 "Warty Pumpkin #2" -- plein air field study -- oil on canvas 12x12"  -- Margie Guyot

Setup for "Warty Pumpkin #2"

I guess you could say I love pumpkins.  When I was a kid there only seemed to be one or two types: the big, jack-o-lanterns and the little pie pumpkins.  My sister and I just loved picking out pumpkins!  Some years my dad would drive us around to several pumpkin stands to find "just the right ones".  

Now that more and more interesting-looking varieties are coming onto the market, I get excited each October, looking to see what the growers have come up with.  If the cold and snow can hold off a little longer, I still have another pumpkin or two to paint.  This is the first year I've tried painting them in this setting.  

While the Northeast was busy digging out from their early snowstorm yesterday, I was sitting on my front lawn, wearing my down coat, and trying to paint this second type of "warty" pumpkin.  Sorry, I don't know the name of the variety.  And I'd gotten a rather late start (3:30) and not only was the sun going down, but the rain was moving in.  Had to use my #8 flat brush and work fast!  The raindrops began just as I was putting on the finishing touches.

Splotchy Pumpkin

 Setup for painting "Splotchy Pumpkin" -- 10/28/11

"Splotchy Pumpkin" -- oil on canvas 18x24" -- Margie Guyot

We had 2 bouts of sleet in the morning.  It was very gloomy and wet.  Then all of a sudden the clouds moved out about noon and voila -- dazzling sunshine!  Hallelujah!  I knew what I wanted to paint....

Last month I found this wonderful pumpkin in the Garden Center at Home Depot.  It was $8 -- highway robbery! -- but it was just too cool to pass up.  I'd seen other big "Cinderella" type pumpkins before, but none with these green splotches.  It's a big one, too.  Heavy.  I knew it would be a great subject to paint.

As with "Warty Pumpkin" (see previous post), I knew it would be more challenging to set it out on the front lawn to paint, as opposed to setting it on a white cloth.  But the green grass and colored leaves are just too marvelous to leave out!  I guess this would qualify as a "plein air still life". 

Normally I try to limit my canvas sizes in plein air to small, such as 8x10".  But this big pumpkin just had to be painted on a larger format!  Scrounging around in the back room, I managed to find a nice 18x24" blank, gallery-wrapped canvas.  

All of us "up north" artists are hoping for sales in this wretched economy, but I've decided to just paint what I just LOVE.  I don't know how many people would want to buy a painting of a pumpkin, but I just know that someday people will be fighting over them!