Queen of the Asparagii

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Many of you have tried to guess the big surprise tomorrow. It's been very interesting to read the guesses. : ) But I am not giving anything away. You'll just have to wait. Sorry about that. Meanwhile I've been trying my hand at asparagus after a long break. What do you call more than one of these green things? Asparaguses just sounds plain wrong.

Tomato Tea

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I have to admit I did a little happy dance when I found this green teapot at the thrift store recently. I did NOT do a happy dance last night when I attended a figure session and had to wipe my painting after 3 hours. I think it is so easy for a figure painting to get ... awkward, and that's what happened to mine. But not to worry, I was doing a sort of sloppy, happy dance after drowning my sorrows in wine with my friend Sarah, whose painting DID turn out (though she hasn't posted it yet).

Will Perform for Alcohol

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In my workshops I stress using a viewfinder to set up a still life. Some of my kids complain that they aren't able to hold the viewfinder steady enough or can't find the same view each time after they draw a little. If you have this problem I recommend this nifty device below, or something like it. You can clamp one end to something near you (like your easel or shadowbox) and use the other clamp to hold the viewfinder. After that the only challenge is to get your head back in the same place every time. : )

Sitting Still

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Right after I finished this one, as I was taking it off my easel, I managed to drop it on the floor - you got it - paint down! (sigh) What I have learned from past experience is - resist the temptation to get all the grit off while it's still wet!! If you wait until the paint is dry all the little bits come right off and usually the paint is just fine, as it was in this case.

Veggie Royalty

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My husband just came out with a new widget for my blog. You can see it over on the right here. It cycles through my latest 20 paintings from my DPW gallery, with the title, whether it's sold or not, and a link to buy or bid. He will soon have versions for all Daily Paintworks members. It is super cool!

Troglodytic Tomato

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This is a new size for me - 5x7in. I saw a student recently painting something horizontal and I thought - why on earth have I been doing squares, exclusively for so long?! Duh.

And regarding the title, sometimes I look up words in the thesaurus so both words start with the same letter. Silly, I know. Troglodytic means someone who lives a secluded life, who is unaquainted with affairs of the world. Maybe the tomato wants to live that way, but it sure looks lonely.

Hide Behind Stacks

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Someone asked how I get the reflections at the bottom. I have a big piece of glass - just regular glass - that I put in the bottom of my shadow box. I tape the front edge and only handle it from that end so I don't cut myself. I generally put down my cloth or paper first so I have some color or something underneath. In this case I had a gray yellow behind and white underneath.

Dramatic Stacks

I went to a figure session tonight and lo and behold there was a naked tomato! It was shy so it undressed behind stacks of cups and refused to come out into the light. Ok, really, our model tonight was a good-looking African American guy, not shy at all. After the first break he didn't quite make it back into the same pose. I tried to change my composition accordingly, but I just ended up making a mess. So I wiped it off and called it lesson learned.