Saturday, January 15, 2011

Green apples and pumpkin pie



I had these apples in a bowl on the kitchen counter, and I thought I'd channel my inner Carol Marine and paint apples.  She had such beautiful apple paintings in her show.

I really climbed the learning curve on this one.  Because the apples are such a light yellow green, I used my lightest yellow--cadmium yellow pale is the name.  That turned out to be a mistake, because it is a transparent yellow, and everything I tried mixing with it made a transparent color.  I was mushing paint around on the canvas for a couple of hours.  Finally I added cadmium yellow medium to the mix.  It is an opaque color, and even though it is a darker yellow, it made the apples brighter.  Go figure.


So I made a pumpkin pie.  It's my son-in-law's favorite.   I got some brownie points for the pie, as well as the satisfaction of success (unlike my apple painting).  When my SIL was about six or seven, he lived across the street from an elderly, white-haired lady.  She used to bake pumpkin pies for him, and he'd go visit and eat pie.  One of his favorite childhood memories.


Sweet Success! 

12 comments:

  1. these are wonderful, Virginia, and I love the background, and especially the part about Carol Marine !!!! -Sandy Haynes

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  2. I love your green apples and think they are every bit as beautiful as anyone else's. Sometimes the ones that don't come so easy are more appreciated:)
    Love the pumpkin pie story- you also made a cake lately...hmmm....good to be in your neighborhood-yum!

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  3. Virginia, this is a fantastic apple painting!! The colors are beautiful and a good composition. VERY nice!!

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  4. Vos pommes sont aussi belles que votre tarte à la citrouille... J'en mangerais bien une part en admirant votre toile...
    Bisous et bon weekend.

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  5. Nice apple painting Virginia! I love the purple shadow...very nice against the yellow green apples. Love the photo of your painting alongside of the delicious looking pumpkin pie!!

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  6. I think you did an excellent job with these apples. Color is great and brushwork very nice. I can smell the pie. Now I'm hungry.

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  7. Fun color in your apples Virginia...the pumpkin pie story is very sweet too.
    Thanks for sharing your CM photos below too, having only seen her small paintings in person, I might faint if I got to see a larger one!

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  8. Green apples look great. Nice composition, too.

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  9. I like your apples Virginia. And the pie. Pumpkin is one of my favorites. The colors in the photos of the apples are a little different from each other, which is understandable. Just curious which one you think matches the painting the best.

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  10. Thanks everyone for visiting and commenting. Caladh, I think the close-up of the painting is truer to life. You can see the purple in the shadows, which doesn't show up in the other picture.

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  11. Beautiful values, Virginia! Nice job!

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  12. Love your blog Virginia! Wow.. great job on the apples! I love pumpkin pie too. My parents used to make it from scratch when I was a kid and I was known to eat half a pie in one sitting. Yours looks delicious!

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