Delicious Watermelon slices

Who doesn't like watermelon?  I don't think there is anyone who doesn't.  Probably no other food encapsulates summer as much as a watermelon.

Hers is my take on the simple watermelon.  Delicious slices.  I've painted these two pieces of watermelon with just a little bit of a shadow underneath.  I wanted to give some dimension to these slices, not just make them pink slabs with a green end and some black dots.

What I did was to make the hard edge of the slice the lightest part of the painting.  normally, I like the foreground to be the darkest part of my paintings, but here I had to make an exception.  The white on the corners is supposed to, along with the drawing, make this really look three dimensional.  I think I've accomplished that somewhat.  Tell me what you think.

Hope you enjoy this little painting I did.  If you would like to see a video of it, check it out below.  Thanks for the quick read.  Stop back again for the next update.

Catching Up

I haven't forgotten about all you avid Dabfly Arts readers.  I have been busy.  In the past week, I've worked overtime, held a garage sale, been across town about 14, flown to the moon and visited the rings of Saturn.  Let's just say I've been a bit busy.  Well, no matter, I'm back and putting up the pictures I should have been putting up all along.

The first painting is of course some apples still on a tree.  They must be getting ready to pick they are slowly turning red.  The second a Scrub Jay which we have in the western states.    They are actually really nice birds, not like those nasty Blue Jays.  Finally a simple painting of a Kingfisher.  Each of these now comes with a video showing how I made it. (Picture on left, video on right)  Take a look to see how I do it.  Thanks for the view.

Practice Fruit

I had a little time on my hands during lunch, so I decided to sketch a few fruits.  Yes, red was the theme.  I gave myself two minutes a piece to paint each one.  I like the apple and the single cherry.  I really want o like the double cherry but the shadow i put on it kind of ruins it for me.  The tomato..... well, i think it went a little south.  lol.

Red Pear Redux

In a first attempt to paint red pears for my video (see video here),   I painted these pears.  I wasn't really happy with them so i started over and did what you see in the video.  I thought, however that I should at least post these that I did in preparation.

I like certain things about this painting, but there are a few I wish I did differently.  I should have put both stems from the pears in the rear pointing up.  I wanted to cross the one from the back with the one in the front, but in hindsight, I think it causes a little confusion for your eye.  Additionally, I think I should have put the red of the background color in the foreground and moved the green tinting to the back.  Doing this would have made the picture look a lot deeper.

Well, live and learn.  I was trying to do this all in 15 minutes and guess I was feeling a bit rushed.  Its still not a bad painting.  I like it.  Hope you do to...

Speed Painting With My Daughter (Now with Sparkle)

I love painting with my daughter.  Like me, she makes up stories about the things she paints.  (She got that from me, and I in turn, got it from Bob Ross.)  Her stories are always outrageous and seldom have any place in reality.  Perhaps thats the imagination of a 5 year old.  I could just sit next to her and listen to her stories all day long, but I'm lucky enough to be able to paint with her while being regaled with these outlandish stories.

This past Saturday we were sitting at the craft table painting when we were just finishing out first paintings when she decided that fruit would be a good thing to paint.  I would quickly sketch out a couple of pictures (one for her and one for me) and we would set out to paint.  She got to the point where fruit was a solid color with a green leaf all lobbied onto the paper in one gleeful moment.  We both ended by laughing and painting furiously.

Then she remembered that she has glitter watercolors.  We had to revisit and add the glitter (she calls it shimmer or sparkle.)  The following was my contribution to our time together.

Apples and cherries were the first pictures we did.
 

I didn't have time to draw my own grapes, so I just freehanded them.

This peach has a generous amount of shimmer on it.  I guess it is substituted for fuzz


No, a chili isn't really a fruit, but she suggested and I obliged

Second attempted portrait.

First portrait attempted.

Strawberries definitely have shimmer.

A tree to end out fun for the day.