Pumpkin Half

So, I finally got around to making my "Autumn Soup" (it's still bubbling in the pan; I can't tell you what it tastes like yet).

Autumn Soup

The pumpkin isn't going to last much longer, so I had to paint this last night. It's always slightly chancey under artificial light, I find, but it still looks okay this morning.

30x30cm, oil on stretched natural linen canvas.

Green to Orange Pumpkin (3)

Something tells me that this pumpkin will soon have finished its colour journey. The step between numbers 1 and 2 is quite drastic when you look at all three paintings together:

You can tell that I missed a week.

Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 cm

SOLD

Green to Orange Pumpkin (2)

Here is the second painting of my ripening pumpkin. As you can see, this one missed Hallowe'en. It will probably end up as soup.

Edited 03/11/11: The second picture - added today - is, of course, the same painting (albeit photographed under different lighting conditions), but I took advantage of the fact that oils take so long to dry to "edit" the painted highlights. Originally, they were smears of white paint. They bothered me; they were too white. It looked like I'd dropped flour on the pumpkin, or applied my paint direct to the gourd. So I smudged them. My finger got covered in paint, but I think the result is an improvement.

Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 cm.
SOLD

Green to Orange Pumpkin (1)

I daresay I should have done a couple more Lego minifigures today, but I've been meaning to have a go at this pumpkin, before it turns all orange, for a while. My idea is to do a series of these 20cm square canvases portraying the same gourd as it gradually turns from green to orange. I thought I'd make it difficult for myself (and less pungent for the rest of the family) by eschewing brushes (and thinners - it's the turpentine that's smelly). Instead, I used a palette knife, which was a bit of a challenge considering the size of the canvas. I had to forgo the idea of faithfully recording the pattern of orange on green in favour of an impression.

Oh, yes, do you recognise the tiles? I dug them out again to provide a bit of continuity between this and the older squashes

Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 cm
SOLD

Squashes

Here are a couple of seasonally appropriate little oil paintings that I did a few years ago.

“Small Pumpkin and Little Gem Squash”, 25 October 2002.

7 x 5”, oil on canvas, painted with a brush in the studio.

“Butternut”, 29 October 2002
7 x 5”, oil on canvas, painted with a brush in the studio.