"Rose and Cherry" Oil on 5x7 board

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Flowers have begun to bloom in my garden, and I want so much to paint them.  I cut some white peonies, but they are so big, and gorgeous, I hesitate to try to paint them.  I noticed one of the poppy buds had bloomed, so I cut that, and did an ok painting of it, but decided it wasn't the best... so I wiped it off and decided to try a rose.  The cherry was still hanging around from my last painting, and it seemed to fit right in.  In the past, I've been tempted to leave the background color a bit unfinished and thin around the outside edges of the painting.  In this case it is the white mix, over the slightly darker raw umber underneath.  It gives it sort of an airy feel.  It doesn't show quite as well in the photo as in real life.

"Mango and Strawberries" Oil on 6x8 board

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I have been away from posting to my blog the last couple of weeks.  The nice weather has been a distraction and yard work is added to my "to do" list now.  Plus, my part time day job seems to get my head totally out of my "painting frame of mind".  It takes a long time to get back to it. But, I'm sure every artist has some of these same issues... I just need to plan my time better.
  But, I have had other nice distractions pulling at me too.  Recently,  I have become re-infatuated with my pastels and I wanted to experiment with them more.  I ordered some colored "sanded" pastel paper, which I never tried before.   I had once bought a jar of "Golden" Acrylic ground for pastels.  It's kind of the same thing.  You can brush it on paper or panel, and it gives a fine gritty surface to hold the pastel.   I've always loved pastel paintings, and every so often I like to give it a try.
  And...  I tried "priming" some hardboard panels for oil painting in a different way.   I put an extra coat of gesso on, a very diluted coat.. hoping it would blur out the brush lines of the previous (dried)layer, and it did.  It dried nice and smooth.  Then I tried a watery coat of acrylic paint, in a gray tone, over the gesso.  Another thing I tried was putting a coat of acrylic varnish on the panel, which is what the painting above is on.  It made a nice surface to paint on.  One nice thing was, you can wipe the whole thing off clean if you mess up, and start over fresh.   That surface was a bit slick for me, though.  I think the dry matte surface of the acrylic painted panels will be more comfortable for me to paint on.  I'm going to try that tomorrow :)

"Bananas with Berries" Oil on 6x8 board

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"Orange, Banana, Grapes" Oil on 6x8 board

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I've been trying out different surfaces to paint on.  This is a hardboard panel that I "primed" with a layer of acrylic varnish.  The surface had a nice feel to it, I felt like I had more control over the paint, and blending was easier.  I'll have to try this again.

"Lemon Water II" Oil on 8x6 board

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I had painted this little glass once before with a lime on a 7x5 board.  This one is a bit bigger, 8x6.   I thought I'd add a slice of lemon to the water. It floated into different positions in the glass, but settled just this way, and I thought it was perfect.