Draw and Paint Together Challenge: Kiwi

This week I took a break from doing portraits, and tried a technique I'd read about, but never attempted. The challenge blog Draw and Paint Together had dramatic photo of a cut up kiwi that appealed to me, so I drew it on an inexpensive canvas covered panel, and then rendered a value study of the image in graphite gray and white acrylic paint.  I worked to made the right side of the kiwi, which is in shadow, but also has some reflected light, suggest the shape of the fruit.

Today I got out my water mixable oils out, along with a medium which is supposed to speed up drying time.  I used the oils quite transparently, and was pleased at how well the lights and darks of the acrylic under painting showed through.  It made painting the colors relatively quick.  I had fun with the project, and hope to try this technique more. I had trouble photographing the finished painting, and there are some reflections on the right side.  I'm going to have to find a way to work around this problem.

8x10 inches, oil on canvas board

I was inspired to look up a little more about kiwifruit on Wikipedia.  Apparently it is native to China, and was formerly known as the Chinese gooseberry.  Other named included the Macaque peach, Vine pear, Wood berry, and Hairy Bush Fruit. An importer in in the early 1960's received negative feedback for these names, and suggested using a short Maori word instead, and today the name kiwifruit, or just kiwi, is accepted globally.

Pepe, For JKPP

5x7 inches

oil on gessoed mat board

So far all the portraits I've done have been of women, so I tried this one of a man named Pepe.  He has a wonderfully expressive face.  I had so much fun with the water soluble oils on my painting of my husband holding his coffee that I used the paints again for this interpretation.  If you visit the Julia Kay Portrait Party page with his reference photos you can see how other people interpreted his expressions.

Coffee With Cream, and a Poem

11x14 inches, oil on canvas

Last fall my husband and I spent a week at Dillman's Resort, where I took an excellent workshop by Robert Burridge, and my husband did his best to explore the area by bicycle, despite heavy rains.  One of my favorite memories is the mornings we talked down to the pier with our coffee, and listened to the cries of loons out on Sand Lake. I painted this from a photo I took one morning, and remembering the beauty of that fall day is helping me deal with late winter.

[Over a cup of coffee]

By Stephen Dobyns

Over a cup of coffee or sitting on a park bench or
walking the dog, he would recall some incident
from his youth—nothing significant—climbing a tree
in his backyard, waiting in left field for a batter's
swing, sitting in a parked car with a girl whose face
he no longer remembered, his hand on her breast
and his body electric; memories to look at with
curiosity, the harmless behavior of a stranger, with
nothing to regret or elicit particular joy. And
although he had no sense of being on a journey,
such memories made him realize how far he had
traveled, which, in turn, made him ask how he
would look back on the person he was now, this
person who seemed so substantial. These images, it
was like looking at a book of old photographs,
recognizing a forehead, the narrow chin, and
perhaps recalling the story of an older second
cousin, how he had left long ago to try his luck in
Argentina or Australia. And he saw that he was
becoming like such a person, that the day might
arrive when he would look back on his present self
as on a distant relative who had drifted off into
uncharted lands.