Black Tea and a Silver Spoon

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 25

Today was a different challenge - I tried to capture the translucency of the paper and wet tea leaves through the bag, as opposed to yesterday which had an un-dipped dry teabag.

I had difficulty photographing this one - the liquid tea on the actual painting (in the spoon and on the plate) is not quite that 'orange', but my camera couldn't seem to color adjust for it, no matter what light conditions I tried, so you'll have to just have to believe me.

Painting metal is interesting as it reflects everything, like a mirror, so a lot of what you are painting as actually the color of the objects surroundings.

Earl Grey

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 23

Same cup as yesterday, different perspective!
This cup is a useful prop for this birds-eye view as it has a little flower painted at the bottom, which helps create an appearance of depth.


(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord   

Tea Bag and a Zazzy Teacup

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 22


One cup of tea leads to another cup of tea.

I wasn't exactly sure about the composition of this cup and with the teabag - and the square format but I painted it anyway.
I played around with the background with my palette knife, picking up on some of the colors in the cup and cloth.
I'm sticking with the square format for this challenge for simplicity sake.

The painting is quite tight in style on this one, but wasn't sure how else to attack that zazzy pattern!

And for those of you who are wondering what zazzy means:

Zazzy
Adjective:

(comparative zazzier, superlative zazziest)
(slang) shiny or flashy


(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord  

Pomegranate and Raspberry Tea

Daily Painting Challenge - Day 21

Yesterday I got into a groove painting the swirly white and blue tablecloth, so I got straight onto another painting with the same cloth.
This is one of my personal favorites.
You can't go wrong with a cup of tea. Definitely firmly back in my comfort zone.

I'm two-thirds of the way through this January challenge!
It's been tough but very rewarding.
There was an update from Strada Easel yesterday that said there were still 500 people participating in the challenge. 

(8 x 8 inches)
20 x 20cm approx
Oil on Gessobord  

Something Sweet

I think I finally have the strawberry paintings out of my system for a while, especially since this one was much harder work than the last one. It took me at least twice as long. Anybody remember their mother sprinkling sugar on strawberries? As if they aren't sweet enough!

The reason this took so long is because originally I had a completely neutral background, like my last three paintings, but the little white sugar bowl just didn't work - it just kind of disappeared into space. I kept darkening the shadows, but then the painting just became too grey and oppressive.

I decided to leave it and come back to it - and in the middle of the night I had a brainwave - there's more than one way to differentiate an object from its background other than working on the values - the colour of course!

So this morning I got up and wiped it. I changed the background to this yummy aqua colour. I also simplified the sugar bowl lid which was giving me no end of headaches (it's a handmade uneven sugar bowl). After some other minor tweaks advised by my husband and eldest daughter, I'm finally happy with it.

(12 x 12 inches)
30 x 30cm approx
Oil on Gessobord