Linda Hunt

These are the prettiest blue hydragea blossoms. I am working on a larger still life which include this vase of flowers. The light on these flowers was very appealing and I wanted to capture the image on its own. In this painting I tried for greater harmony and worked to establish a strong contrast. 8X8 inches oil canvas panel

Today I spent most of the afternoon settimg up a still life to work from. I had purchased these gorgeous hydrangea blooms and they inpired this set up. I will sketch this out first to get a feel for the composition and then I plan on painting a value study. After I have worked out the details I want to paint it in color. I haven't decided in what value range I want the painting. Hopefully, I can get a few small daily paintings from some of the elements of this still life. How do you approach a still life? I only have my studio lights and I know that I can't get the richest for purest color but I will try.

In this painting I used full color. Usually I mix my own blacks as I did in this painting, however, I did resort to using tube black to obtain the blackest black. I worked hard to trnaslate what I had learned from working with 4 values as in the firtst painting. I find that the translation into color is a tricky thing and this may be where I need to work harder. It is an interesting exersize to do a series of paintings from one subject. 6X6 inches oil Raymar canvas panel

In this study I broke down the drawing into white and black shapes. I tried to connect the black as much as possible. 6X6 inches oil Raymar canvas panel

I have decided to take a few steps back and really evaluate my painting. In doing this I am turning to black and white, and grey studies. Sometimes you just have to stop the carousel long enough to steady yourself. As many of you will note I took myself out of the wonderful group DPO. There are medical issues that I am having to deal with and this gives me time and less stress in my daily life. I hope to explore more about painting during this time. These ARE the coolest shoes!! They are carved wood on the heel portion with flowers and leaves in beautiful bright colors. The upper portion of the shoe is black leather. I love them even though I have a terrible time walking in them!!

Time to clear out the gardens and get ready for fall and winter. I did some minor plantings and rearranging of my garden. My Celosia was out of control! I cut it back and discarded many of the plants that were withered. Oh yes, I haven't spent as much time in my garden because I have been painting. The cuttings I brought in the studio and thought that I would try to paint them. Oh boy was that a challenge. I ended up wiping the whole thing down after many hours of labor. It was just too important to get that painting done so I tried again and was much happier with the results. 6X12 inches oil canvas panel $124.95 plus $10 shipping in US. PURCHASE HERE

I grew weary of the approach to painting that I have been doing and decided to just pull out all the stops today when I painted. I wanted to capture the essence of the sliced tomatoes. I wanted to paint rapidly and respond to the color and shapes as quickly as I could. I was pleased with the results. I find that sometimes I get caught in the process of trying to paint what I think it should be rather than what I intuitively feel and see. 6X6 inches oil canvas panel $74.95 plus $8.00 shipping in the USA. PURCHASE HERE