PEARS IN THE SNOW

New Year's Day, 2009, I woke early to arrange pears and apples in the snow. I was composing still lifes for my Painting A Day series. A reasonable person would be resting in bed after late night reveling, but the snow was fresh, the sun was bright, and I had pears to paint.

These little studies are great exercises in painting color, light, and feeling. There are many colors in Bosc pears that you may not have noticed - blue, green, orange and purple for instance. The light and shadows make interesting abstract designs which are fun to paint. Pears also have an anthropomorphic quality. Their little bodies and stems can appear to be huddled in conversation, waddling off to a party, or lying in lazy repose. I will try to convey this in my little paintings.

I paint a wide variety of subjects. I use acrylic paints because that is how I began painting and I love using them. They dry fast, and I paint fast, so we work well together. I like to use a lot of color - if you look at the first six paintings in my All My Paintings gallery, you can use the magnifier to see the colors I paint in to the sand by the sea, or a veranda, or a city street, or a pear. Usually I paint from photographs (my own). I like to paint commissions, which start with photographing your house, your pet, or you, or whatever you want a painting of.

I started painting in 2007 at the age of 52. Who knows what took me so long. The stuff of life kept me busy. Now with certain passages behind me, I'm letting the cat out of the bag.

In the words of George Eliot, "It's never too late to be who you might have been." That's what I figured, on New Year's morning, while everyone else was sleeping, and I placed my pears in the snow.