Mary B Spires Watercolor & Art Stuff

8" x 10" Oil on Board This painting proves you need to paint from life! I sat this still life up in the Pumfrey's afternoon class....I love all the reflections in  the silver bowl.....I've been studying a DVD by Patricia Moran. She doesn't draw the subject on the surface, she blocks in masses of color......as soft as you can for as long as you can. I've learned sooooo much, about getting a good start that will create a great finish.......the ampersand gessoed board that I have been using makes the brush strokes show without using a great amount of paint.

6"x6" Oil On Panel This is the last one in the series, the lemons are looking so bad! Also I didn't want to spend $1.99 for 3!!!!!! I love the reflections on the B&W Tile....it really was a learning experience...I had to use black paint and the yellow/orange keep getting muddy.....

Click here to bid on ebay 6x6 Oil on Panel This is the second in this series! They are looking pretty bad!!! I think I've figured out how to do the photographs. I have spent the last 3 days working on it.......

6x6 Oil on Panel Today is Monday!!!! New Subject!!!! I went to the produce stand yesterday but everything look really bad, but I found these two Lemons in the produce tray in my frig....so I guess they are going to be the subject for the week.

8" x 10" Oil on Canvas Board This is the finish painting. As you can see I had a lot of work to do to finish this one. I started by adding the design detail on the cup. The blue swirl was Ultramarine Blue. The red is Cadmium Red with a touch of Cadmium Yellow. The green was Ultramarine Blue plus Cadmium Yellow. I did this with a #4 Filbert brush. I next painted the lemons with Cadmium Lemon with a touch of Cadmium Yellow, plus white. White was added as need to get light values of the yellow. Next I mixed several values of Gray. This mix is Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson and Cadmium Yellow. I maded the various values needed by adding white. All the Grays were used to painted the shadow side of the cup, plus the table cloth. The tea bag was painted with the Grays plus I brushed mix a little Cadmium Red into the gray for the right side shadow.