Pre-flight painting

What better way to while away the pre-flight hours than work on tomatoes?
First - yesterday worked on the handle and rivets of the knife, and added the seeds lying on the black marble tile.

Today I sharpened up the seeds and the bakelite handle of the knife on this one

Added the gold band and rim to the plate, and deepened the joints between the wood.


If I can figure out how to load photos from my camera chip to the iPad, I'll try to post some of my sketches during the trip.

Tomato progress

Added the tomatoes and the Kramer knife blade. First layer done except for the gold band on the plate. All about getting things placed right.


Another layer on everything, particularly the plate. Still not sure about the white background above the plate.


Next Wednesday I'm leaving on a month-long trip to London, Edinburgh, and York. It's part of my continuing art education. I made the executive decision not to start two of the big, more complicated paintings before I leave, since I have these to work on. Tomorrow I'll work on the Vampire Diaries knife, maybe do the drawing for Gripland.
I've been sketching in the morning, limbering up. When I'm on the road I mostly sketch, take photos and soak in the juice one can only get when standing right in front of works of art. I'll haunt the hallowed halls the National Gallery, the Tate, The Wallace Collection, etc. DOubt I
ll catch the bouquet, but you never know.

One tomato, two tomato, three tomato, four.

Started the commissioned Tomato & Kramer Knife today. Worked on the wood background, the cobalt ellipses of the plate and the knife handle.

Into the drying box it goes. I've put the tomatoes on the aqua plate on hold. Thinking about changing the background.

I have another - Tomato & Carpenter Knife - on a blue willow plate, and Tomato & Vampire Diaries Knife - with the delicious flaming skull mat knife - on standby. This afternoon I'll stain two more canvases with a thin coat of burnt sienna, hoping to grid and draw them tomorrow. No way they'll be finished before I leave for London, but it's nice to have things in progress.

I've come up with a title for the series of portrait based paintings - Hardwired.
The common thread of those works is how they look at the push-pull of environment and heredity, the combination of chromosomes and circumstance. Though I am a fan of free will, I suspect that destiny is just another name for DNA.

Tomatoes x 5

Here are the new tomatoes. One is still wet with varnish. Two are still drying enough to varnish - probably a week from now. All of them need wiring. I am so impatient to show them off - I'm like a kid who wants to wear new shoes home from the store.

There are all 10x10", oil on canvas, and $425 at HHFA. The Tomato & Chrysanthemum Knife is spoken for. I am still working on my photography - I see glare from the varnish on parts of some of the photos that's not visible in person.


Tomato & Chrysanthemum Knife


Tomato & Civil War Knife


Tomato & Japanese Knife


Tomato & Pocketknife


Tomato & Camping Knife

Three runs, no outs, no errors

About tomatoes - one day I may tire of them. But not yet.
There are very southern. Someday I'll try to paint a tomato sandwich on white bread. Done properly, you have to eat them dripping over the sink. And my daddy always planted tomatoes in the garden when I was growing up. That and hearing crackly baseball play-by-plays on the radio reminds me of him.

Meanwhile I’ve worked on the Priest's Laundry. I painted two doors, the upper story windows with curtains, and canal level windows with bars (also mesh - got to keep those wharf rats out). The remaining white canvas is a bit of the brick wall, the guard rail of a bridge (the one I'm standing on to take photo) and the laundry. It's going to have to be dry as a bone around the laundry before I do it so I can lift any errors or wobbles with turp without erasing the background.

Now I'm starting a third canvas - the paint is so wet on the other two that it just makes sense. This is the lunch at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC last year. Did 90% of the drawing. Love the blues. Decided to swap out the yellow #2 pencil in the photo for the Caran D'ache red pencil my daughter bought me in Paris when she surprised me with the blue sketchbook. Finished the drawing in time to paint a bit more on the tomato - worked on the knife handle and bread. Then mixed the colors for the Met painting. Realized Gilbert's George Washington portrait on the museum guide is particularly appropriate to paint this year. Great colors to work with - all those luscious blues! And there's a tile floor that stretches away in the background, like a little Flemish nod.

First Swan House Sale

Just got the email - the Heirloom Tomato painting sold, and they've asked me to send another small work over. The max size is supposed to be 8x8" but I have offered them what I have on hand - a pair of Venetian doorknockers, an Othello and a Lion of St Mark, that are 8x10." Nothing ventured, etc.

Swan House Gallery show - "Little Things Mean A Lot"

These small works were painted for the Swan House Gallery show. My secretary drawers yielded objects that resonate with meaning for me: the gold pen given me at the outset of my writing career, one of my sketchbooks, a lucky coin, and the pocket watch that belonged to my grandfather. I chose a single heirloom tomato and a bone-handled knife for the pleasure I take in red and sharp edges. I wrote haiku titles to scratch that writer itch.
For the 6x6" o/c the title is:

Time is not money.
If your day is spent drawing
it turns to pure gold.

Here's the 5x7" o/c title:

Heirloom tomatoes
Red and swollen on the vine.
The taste of summer.