Yellow Apples and Goldenrod

 I so rarely try my hand at a still life, but they can be so much fun! Today's alla prima, and very seasonal, painting:

Yellow Apples and Goldenrod, 9 x 12" oil on linen panel

The apples I used are called Pristine; one of the earliest apples to ripen here. Sweet, tart, and with a skin so thin we treat them as though they're made of glass when handling them. They bruise very easily. They're a very pale yellow, and, if hanging on the outside of the tree, can have a beautiful blush. I wanted to paint them along with some goldenrod because they're both in season now, and though they might both be called yellow, their hues are so different.

Palette, partway through painting.

 Picking apples earlier this month. :)
 Learning to look at the background color of apples to judge proper ripeness takes some time and I'm still learning. And doing lots of tasting. This sure is a good eating time of year.

The picking bag is almost full. Time to waddle over to a crate to empty it out.

Time to Make Hay

Time to Make Hay, 14 x 18" oil on linen

I love seeing a good herd of hay bales out in a field. ;-) 

Billowing clouds above, warm sunshine, the fragrance of cut hay. 

The actual painting of this went pretty quickly, and was a lot of fun. Prior to painting I did a fairly detailed pencil sketch, followed by a watercolour study. 

I sometimes rope my farmer dad into being my technical advisor. Being out in all weather, and farming all his life, he's got a good eye for skies, and can sometimes give a good dose of reality to my rural landscapes. In this painting I ended up adding more bales than I had originally drawn because it apparently looked like a pretty sparse harvest!