fruit and flowers

It been a while since I had boards to paint on. I ran out a few weeks back, found a couple here and there but they were few and far between. I did have some canvases but not the 8x8 or 8x10 panels I was used to painting on. I had to have some panels cut, I no longer have access to a table saw myself. I now have a stack almost 2 feet tall. Alas, they all needed to be gessoed, this set me back almost another two weeks. I don't enjoy applying gesso, I always end up wearing some of it. I did get some of them primed and ready to be painted on. I used two already, neither shown on this post. These paintings were products of the last of the boards I cut myself. The roses above and the papaya below both have a large Poppytrails platter as the subject's base. I like the green color of this dish with the oranges of the flowers and fruit. Actually, I selected this one for the fruit, it had not been put away when I was setting up the roses. I probably have a dozen large platters in shades of green, most are subtle shades between chartreuse and turquoise, that is not counting the very dark green one. Seems I also collect platters, at least they stack well. I realise the scale of the papaya is hard to judge. The fruit was close to a foot long, the platter a couple of inches larger. I seldom spend time with papayas, but knew the color of there flesh was something I wanted to paint.

both 8" x 8" oil on board

The camellias in the bottom painting were the last off the bush in front of my house. When I first moved here I felt lucky to have one or two flowers a year on this shrub. Who knew that if you water it once in a while it may decide to flower. It was covered with blossoms this year. This painting and the roses above share the same vase. I've had it for quite a while, it seems to have resurfaced, I can't recall when I used it last in a painting. I did open a few boxes (10) that were stored in my basement recently. I did not think it was out of action for nine years, but that may be the case. Time goes speeding by...

10" x 8" oil on canvas