I’m halfway done!!! Actually, more than halfway. Only 14 days remaining in this 31-day challenge.

I’m having a dilemma. While I like the painterly look of some of these newer paintings and I can get them done relatively quickly, I’m on the fence about them. I think I liked the more refined paintings I was doing last year better. I think I need to try to slow down and take more time with some of these paintings.

Easier said than done though. For instance, the leaves on the radishes wilt very quickly which inspires a sense of urgency and quick paintings are the result. Also, it’s a lot easier to motivate myself to paint each day when I know it will only take an hour or two. Two hours is typically pushing it.

I actually finished day 11 on day 10. I was super motivated to paint a second painting so I did. However, I wasn’t super satisfied with the completed painting at the end of the day. I found it too busy and I just couldn’t ignore it. So I fixed it after fiddling with it in photoshop. Once I had it in photoshop, I couldn’t help but add a leaf to the top. The original seemed so squashed under the top edge of the panel. Adding one leaf really helped the composition.

Day 12 turned out a bit better than the day 11. I think I captured the idea of the first radish again, which was my goal with day 11. I really like how this painting turned out. My favorite part is the twisted root of the left radish and all of the lower right radish. … ok I love all of it.

Day 13 was the result of another motivated day. I painted it right after finishing the previous painting. Again, I don’t think it initially turned out as well as I wanted so I went back and worked on this one again. I like it a whole lot better now. I think the biggest issue I had with it was the background. It was too bright and too busy so I simplified and darkened it. I briefly considered removing the back beet, but ultimately decided removing it would make the remaining beet awkward.

If you’re wondering, yes these are the same beets I painted on day 3. Apparently, my family doesn’t like beets so they’re sticking around. The tops wilted of course, but the beets themselves seem like they’ll last forever. Same with the radishes. The tops wilt every time I paint them, but the rest seems pretty hardy. They came in a big bunch so I just used new unwilted radishes for each painting.

I think the limes turned out great on Day 14, but I’m less sure about the rest of it. My main take away from last year was that the still lifes themselves were consistently harder to set up than it was to paint. This is also proving true for this year. It’s one of those things that is so easy in theory. It seems as simple as just setting objects out and lighting them. Except it isn’t that easy. If it was, all of these paintings would be somewhat more sucessful.

Day 15 went a little more smoothly than 14. I finally decided to steal the bright little LED light from my kid’s room. It has a very bright, focused beam of relatively neutral colored light. I’ve been using a larger light up until now that just isn’t focused enough. This kid’s light is like a mini spotlight which means I can put the light exactly where I want it and get really intense, interesting shadows.

I’m not sure how I feel about day 16. On one hand, I really like it, but on the other hand, I don’t. I backlit the subject which really made the limes glow and I was able to use an almost neon yellow color which was intersting.

I’ve always wanted to paint one of those spiral peeled oranges. This clearly isn’t an orange, but I didn’t have any. For day 17 I decided to give the spiral peel a try anyway. I think it turned out pretty nice. The lime green color has been pretty easy to get. The white of the lime was a little more challenging. It was pretty much the same white of the table. I thought it would be a little boring for it to be the same though so I painted it a bit more yellow than it actually is.

hese paintings are available for sale in the shop section of this website.