Getting to Know You

You may be wondering why I would title a blog post “Getting to Know You?” Well, I can share several reasons with you. First, it is the title of a song from a fantastic musical called “The King and I.”

This amazing musical and its score were one of many my siblings and I heard when we were on clean up kitchen duty after dinner each night. I kept hearing the song in my head as I was painting this week’s painting. Here’s Deborah Kerr’s version of this song here.

Getting to know the studio

You may still be wondering why I thought of the song “Getting to Know You” and, I don’t blame you. So here’s my explanation. I have been working in my newly converted garage studio for about 10 days now. I have 7 sources of light in this space. And I decided to paint a single, simple but challenging item a gazillion times (okay only 3 times up to now). That item? An egg!

So far this past week, I have finished three different paintings of eggs in different locations in the studio. Why? So I could begin to understand and see the light in the studio. Also, eggs are tricky characters to paint so I figured this would be a good challenge.

Each week, I have no idea what I am going to paint or what I will call the painting. So when the song “Getting to Know You” kept popping into my head. I decided it was worth keeping. I also think the two eggs in this painting practically look as if they are getting to know each other. But who knows, maybe that’s me anthropomorphizing these two eggs? Ah well, the name of this week’s painting and blog post is “Getting to Know You.” And, this is my 14th painting from a series I started in January called “Favorite Things.”

Light Assessment

So, you might be wondering what it is like to paint in this 10 ft wide by approximately 24 ft long studio. In a word, amazing. The light is incredible. If anything right now, I have too much light. I have already covered the west and south facing windows to give me the chance to control form and cast shadows.

I do need to make some further refinements to controlling the light from the 4 east facing skylights. But for now, I am completely relishing having my very own space. So painting in this light is fantastic and I feel really lucky and grateful!

Here’s some information about the choice for my still life this week and some artist notes too.

Egg Source

One of my friends gave me a box of eggs from her family’s ‘egg source.’ Evidently, the egg source’s chickens do not realize that there’s a pandemic going on. The chicken’s are laying eggs as if business and distribution is ‘as usual.’

So we are the lucky recipients of these eggs that come in all kinds of beautiful colors. But what I’ve learned is that green egg was not green at all right after the noon hour on each day that I worked on this painting. In fact, the egg was a neutral even slightly reddish color. How in the world did that happen?

Still life box

I have enclosed my still life set up in a box that has a burgundy sheet around it. My thinking is that just after the noon hour, the light is shifting just enough so that the burgundy from the still life box was neutralizing the green egg. What is super interesting is that the egg was back to it’s unique green self by later in the day. I promise no mind altering drugs are in use while I’m in the studio!

I will continue to observe this phenomenon to see if I notice it with future paintings.

Getting Acquainted

I continue to get acquainted with using a limited palette. That is, for the past few weeks, I have reduced the number of colors I used from 21 to 5 or 6. This week I used Burnt Sienna, Alizarin Crimson (permanent), Cadmium Yellow, Phthalo Blue, Ivory Black and Cremnitz White.

Unlike previous weeks, I used hardly any Ivory Black at all. In fact, I don’t think I found a suitable way to use it in this painting at all. So I could remove it from the list. And, I am trying a new cremnitz (lead) white paint from Natural Pigments. I confess I am still getting adjusted to this new paint. It’s a bit different from my trusted cremnitz version by Old Holland. But I will save any further analysis of the differences for another day.

What I love about using a limited palette, is there seems to be a unity and harmony to colors within the painting. I am delighted with that! I confess there were several times when I missed a color from my bigger palette. For instance, I would have enjoyed using the gentler and friendlier Ultramarine Blue rather than loud and overbearing Phthalo blue. But we all learned to get along. In particular, I found mixing a gentle violet with Phthalo Blue and Alizarin Crimson was a lovely way to transition to the darker areas of the blue tea towel in the painting.

For sale

So this painting is for sale for $325 here. And, if you enjoy reading these blog posts about my weekly paintings, you can sign up here. And, if you get a minute or even if you have an hour or so (and who doesn’t these days?) consider watching the King and I movie from 1956. I promise you will be delighted!

How about you? What has delighted you lately? Please share in the comments below and thank you for reading!