Bottles and pears

Bottles and pears

My January exhibition was time consuming to manage and left me little painting time. Once it was finished I had a real urge to paint. The exhibition space influenced the sizes of the canvases I chose as I saw the paintings hanging in the cafe as I bought them: long and square canvases with a 61cm (24") edge.

What fits on long canvases? Well, bottles for one thing; the green (wine) and pink (bubbly) bottles from the exhibition opening party which happened to be still standing on the bench.

I added green pears and wine glasses but it took me a long time and many trials to make the painting interesting.

Progress: bottles and pears

Liquid in the glasses (detail)

Finally, as I was about to paint the whole canvas over, I sat my filled wine glass beside the bottles and noticed the interesting pattern made by the liquid in the glass.

I added some wine  to the second glass and had fun capturing the patterns in paint.

In the meantime the pears had turned a lovely golden shade of yellow, much too beautiful to discard (ie eat) without trying to paint them anew. 

I put them in a bowl and immediately started on a second painting.
 

Bottles and pears 2
(30.5 x 61 cm)

 This second painting was finished in no time and I like it better than the first. 

I don't know whether it was easy to paint because of the time I had already invested in the first painting or whether the autumnal colour combination made it more inspiring and therefore easier to paint.

Recent pictures on the wall