Oranges and Lemon

Oils on primed cardboard, 20x15cm: A one-hour study that took me all day to get to! The idea for today was to get out to the studio early this morning but as I am still catching up from the change over to British Summer Time and need to make up for that lost hour I didn't get up until 9:30. By the time I got moving I realised that today was the last day of March and I really needed to renew my Road Tax before tomorrow (April). So set off up to the Post Office and waited in a long queue! That done, and after some coffee, I was all geared up with my usual painting clothes on - green pinny, beeny hat, zipper jumper and beat-up Nike's - all ready for action when....my brother arrived to see me. Sometimes you've just got to go with the flow of the day although since I stopped full-time working (for someone else) it seems that other people see me as unemployed and doing nothing that can't be interupted. Shouldn't complain - it's good to get a visit and talk to a real person for a change! By the time I did get out to the studio sometime in the afternoon my mind was now too restless to get down to work so set about tidying, cleaning my palette, and clearing some working space.
In this restless state of mind I found that too much of the day was already gone and I couldn't think of starting any large project, so taking my lead from those artists who advocate painting for one hour and working to a very small scale I quickly set up this simple still life with some oranges and my favourite little yellow pot. Moving the objects around a bit looking for a kind of abstract relationship, and using a small viewfinder aperture, I settled on this view and got to work starting with this colour study:

Neocolour pastels on paper, A5: Many studies were not required since I had already chosen the view with the viewfinder, and the colour choices were to be as I saw them directly, so it was straight into the oil painting (top). Since the colour scheme was very limited it didn't take long to squeeze out the colours I wanted and mix them according to what I could see before me: French Ultramarine with a touch of Alizarin and Tit.White; lemon yellow with white; lemon yellow to various degrees with alizarin for a range of oranges, and with blue for some cooler greens. I continue to work with this limited palette which satisfies my need for simplicity and consistency. By the time I have done all this preparatory work on the palette the painting almost paints itself. With as many single strokes as possible I completed the final painting in jig time!
At least I managed something from today.