Bell Peppers

Shazam Red Bell Peppers are so healthy! In fact, seems you can replace those Vitamin C supplements right now. Hold on, I am getting ahead of myself here.

Let me remind you that this painting is a part of my “Favorite Things” series. What is that? Well, each week since the beginning of 2020, I paint and post a painting of one of my favorite things. Mostly, I find my favorite things are food! However, I also love painting the lovely human figure. So, you will see figure paintings here now and then, too.

At the end of the post, I’ll describe a few artist notes and ideas. But, for now, let’s consider all the amazing virtues of the red and yellow bell pepper.

Bell Peppers Benefits

Seems the Red Bell Pepper is the best of any color pepper you can imagine. Why? Well, these red power houses have more Vitamin C than either Green or Yellow Peppers. According to this WebMD article, the longer the Bell Pepper stays on the vine, the better the nutrients.

Speaking of nutrients and food, I just love sharing recipes here. Forgive me if this delicious Bell Pepper salad recipe suggests orange or yellow bell peppers. Good grief! Frankly, I think the photo of this recipe might have a bit more ‘zing’ with a Red Bell Pepper in it. What do you think? Onward to artist notes now.

Artist Notes

I set this painting up so that I could think about color and composition. Why? I am in the midst of taking an amazing online class with Zoey Frank. She has encouraged us to study paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque era, any pre-1850 paintings actually.

In particular, she studies and directly references Master Paintings to create her amazing multi-figure paintings. Here’s an example of one of her paintings. And, here’s the Master painting she used; the name of the painting is “Massacre at Chios” by Eugene Delacroix.

Are you still with me? Ya I know, it blows my mind too. To think that she is using a painting of a massacre in 1824 so that she can create a huge, lively, lovely painting of a pool party? I can’t even keep up with the brain synapses she must have used to get from the Delacroix to the Pool party. But I can share that she is a part of a proud and long history of painters who ‘paint what they know.’ She visited the pool in her mom’s neighborhood and did sketches and photographs there last summer. Then she came up with this concept and huge, life-sized painting.

It warms my heart to see this beautiful painting showing a moment in time…especially now in the midst of all this social distancing.

Baby Steps

So you may be wondering what the heck a painting of a pool party or a massacre have to do with my Red and Yellow Bell Peppers painting. Well, actually I copied a painting by an incredible FEMALE Italian painter named Giulia Lama. I only learned about this painting because Zoey Frank shared Ms Lama’s image of Judith and Holofernes during one of her online painting lectures. Here’s the painting:

Isn’t this an incredible painting? She painted this in 1730 and is considered one of the first female painters to paint a nude figure. This is a huge undertaking at a time when women were not allowed to paint let alone paint a nude male!

I could not get this painting out of my mind. And, Zoey Frank showed at least 7 other painters’ interpretation of Judith and Holofernes during that lecture. But this image has stayed in my mind. So, I had to copy it for that week’s homework.

While I worked on the simple poster study of this painting, I learned so much about repeating angles and keeping the eye moving around the canvas. So that is why I had to paint the Bell Peppers and that little blue tea towel this week. This is my first big step towards thinking about repeating angles in Lama’s painting. There’s the angle of the tea towel pointing up to the peppers. Then there’s the angle of the red bell pepper’s stem pointing towards the yellow pepper. And, then the angle of the base of the yellow bell pepper bringing the viewer’s eye back into the painting.

For Sale

Good grief I did not expect to share so much of what I have learned as I painted this painting. But for those of you kind enough to read along, thank you. And, this lovely Bell Peppers painting is for sale for $325 here. And, to get weekly updates with the latest paintings, sign up here!

How about you? Are you a Red Bell Pepper fan? If not, or even if you are, share your favorite vegetable(s) in the comments below. Who knows, maybe I will paint your favorite vegetable some day!