Incremental progress on the apples painting yesterday. Did a bit more work on the jar and started bringing in middle highlights. I also worked on the stems and leaves. I have also started working out the shadows. I’ve also started a little blending on the apples using the NuPastels. I don’t think this painting will have a lot of blending done except, perhaps in that front leaf. It is still not right… the intensity of the greens is just too much, and I don’t have the greens I actually want… so I will need to do some blending with some greens, browns, greys and blues and maybe some creams, to get what I want. I will probably work this out using scrap paper and give myself little color “notes” until I figure it out then come back to the painting itself. I actually love the leaf on the left side of the apple that is in shadow and will not mess with it any more. But the top leaf and front leaf need real work… although the bottom of the front leaf is close to where I want it as it turns under.

Overall,  I happy with the progress so far. Especially since Ken (my husband and live-in art critic), came up to the studio to visit yesterday and said, “They are really looking like apples  now.”

I mentioned in the last post that I would show you what I use to “erase” when I need to take pastel layers down a few layers because I’ve had something happen that I don’t want but I have no more room on the tooth of the paper to add more pastel. When that happens, I use these: The foam brushes purchased very inexpensively work great for large areas but I use the foam make-up brushes for the tiny areas.

A very cold day today with the thermometer reading just 23 degrees right now and dropping. Oddly, it is supposed to warm up to 65 degrees on Sunday. No snow as of yet.