Two Pears in the Sunlight is the last of my pear painting touch ups. I loved the bright yellows of the pears and the foreground texture. There is a simple looseness in this early painting that I wanted to keep so I just added the purple stripe and a bit more detail to the background wall.
It’s a bright painting for an early overcast Friday morning. Hope everyone enjoys the weekend ahead!
I’m back to painting again, here is a new still life I did in honor of my Mom. Her birthday was last Friday. I discovered this small megellica pitcher of hers hiding in the back on top of my kitchen cabinet last month. I just love it, the sunflower with the bee and the handle made to look like a branch.
Tulips in Mom’s Pitcher is a companion to the other majolica stoneware pitcher painting I did last year. I chose bright colorful tulips and pears to lift my spirits as the news has been very discouarging lately, it felt good to get absorbed in painting.
It’s been a busy season, we’ve had a guy redoing our hallway bathroom for the past four months. We have a 60’s split level and the bathroom shower was leaking and the floor cracked so we bit the bullet deciding to update it. He said he’d have it done before our girl got home from school in late December, she went back to school in late January with the bathroom still unusable. Now finally it is almost done. Though it’s taken him a long time, he’s quite an artist himself and has done a good job. It’s looking great and we’re thrilled.
I’m going to start a new painting this weekend, it’s a good distraction. Here in Atlanta everyone is very excited about the Super Bowl as our home team, the Falcons are hopefully going to “rise up,”as they say. Enjoy the weekend!
Mexican Jumping Pears is one of my early pear paintings. I chose the name because the colors and the bowl reminded me of Mexico. The pears look like they are celebrating, almost jumping out of their bowl with the colorful movement all around them.
Today I feel like celebrating, yesterday my girl completed her college applications. She has already gotten accepted to UGA which is no small feat and has now applied to two private Northeastern colleges. She worked diligently to get them done. The teens these days work so hard with their demanding school work and their extra activities. I’m glad that she can now can relax and see what happens. My husband and I are happy and very proud of her, wherever she ends up.
I’m looking forward to getting back to my painting routine and hope that everyone is off to a happy start to 2015!
Lounging Pears is another one of my pear paintings. It’s the most recent one which I painted a few years ago. I was happy with the intense colors and the way the pears relate to each other. Even though it is a still life there is a sense of movement to it.
It’s a beautiful Saturday morning here in Atlanta, clear sky with temperatures forecast to reach the high 60’s. I’m going to advantage of the nice day to get some long overdo gardening done before the next cold front rolls in. I’ve been sketching out some ideas for a new painting which I hope to start today. Inspiration is here with spring in the air! Happy weekend to all.
I’ve been thinking about my pear paintings lately. They take me back to a point in time when I realized that I wanted to paint. Here is that memory. I was meeting a friend for coffee at a cafe, she and I both had our three year old girls in preschool a few days a week. It was a challenging time for me as my dad was in hospice care. Up until that time, no one close to me had died. I had never experienced the grief of losing a loved one before. My friend had lost her first husband and she was very understanding and helpful. I noticed there were framed pear still life watercolors on the walls around us. I had been making papier mache bowls which were very laborious and not selling as well in Atlanta as they had in San Francisco. I thought to myself, I could paint pears and it was at that moment in time that I decided to become a painter. Eventually my daughter went over to middle school and free time opened up. With no more Girl Scout leader or PTA obligations, I began painting every day.
Some of my first paintings were of pears which are pictured above. I love painting pears with their lovely feminine forms and beautiful warm colors. I think beginning painters paint pears because of their easier simple forms and the universal theme of pear still lifes through art history with so many well known pear paintings. Matisse’s pears come to mind. With some of my pear paintings I feel I had beginners luck, perhaps my happiness at more time to pursue my passion showed through.
Pears available here.
Heni's Happy Paintings 