An Apple a Day?

"Darker at the Core"

8 x 8 oil on linen panel

Price posted when dry! :)

As many of you know, I typically tend toward overall high key paintings, but ever since I painted an almost black plum last week I've been thinking about balancing darker colors. Here, for the background and foreground I've mixed what I like to call "bright black" meaning a very dark value comprised of saturated relatively darker pigments like Thalo Blue, French Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin, Cad Red Light, etc.

Also I had not painted a knife painting a while, so I wanted to work with that as well. For added sparks of color and interest, I also toned the linen canvas panel with a thin but bright wash of Golden Acrylic Pyrrole Red. I noticed on another painter's blog a beautiful series of 31 daily plum paintings which I found very inspiring so perhaps I'll do the same with apples. Not only are apples an appropriate daily subject for September, I think they will be an extra challenge.  We see apples almost everyday and there are many fine paintings of them so how do we make them more intriguing on canvas?  We'll have to wait and see...

In the meantime, I hope everyone is enjoying a beautiful, sunny fall weekend. See you in the studio!