Pond Reflection

6 x 8 inches, oil on panel

Back at the Japanese Tea Garden: Yellow Ginkgo leaves float across the upside-down reflection of the surrounding trees. I love the diagonal sweep of light across the surface, the vertical points of reflected pine tree tops, and the sprinkle of floating leaves.

Autumn Trees

6 x 8 inches, oil on panel

I went back to the Japanese Tea Garden again today. I'm trying to take advantage this last spell of sunny, warm-ish days by painting outside as much as possible. I got very cold after sitting on a rock and painting all afternoon, but I took advantage of being in a tea garden and warmed up with a pot of jasmine.

Floating Leaves

5 x 7 inches, oil on panel

Today I spent the afternoon in Golden Gate Park's Japanese Tea Garden. I took 153 photos and was dazzled by how the design of the garden makes a beautiful composition appear from just about any angle.

I was too visually overwhelmed to choose a single view to paint, and after a while I just sat down in one spot and started noticing the small details of the fallen ginkgo leaves and Japanese maple leaves drifting by on the surface of a pond. I loved how the leaves looked as they floated on the surface and almost - but not quite - merged with the reflection of the trees and sky.

I spent a long time trying to figure out how we see that the floating debris is on a different plane than the reflection. I noticed that each leaf makes a dimple in the surface tension of the water, which creates a wobbly outline and makes the leaf "pop" visually. I tried to imitate this in my little Monet-inspired sketch.

Seashell and Bottle SOLD

5 x 7 inches, oil on panel

This is the same seashell I did in a more impressionistic style earlier this week. I decided to tackle it more directly this time and really attempt to capture the pearly reflective surface of the shell. Light and shadow define form, but when every surface on an object reflects light, I discovered that the form is very hard to describe. I enjoyed the challenge, though.

San Francisco Ferry Building

6 x 8 inches, oil on panel

Today Nowell and I went to the Embarcadero waterfront area downtown here in San Francisco. Nowell experimented with his new HD video camera while I did this painting of the Ferry Building. It was very cold and as the sun sank lower the wind picked up, so by the time we packed up our equipment we were shrieking with the cold and forcing our numb fingers to work faster.

We dropped everything off in the car (where I balanced the wet painting on the dashboard) and managed to recover from the cold at the bar of the nearby Slanted Door restaurant with a snack of sherry and oysters.

Overall, a pretty satisfying day.

Cafe Centro SOLD

6 x 8 inches, oil on panel

Seashell

6 x 6 inches, oil on panel

Alley in Tuscany SOLD

6 x 8 inches, oil on panel

It's nice to be painting again after a few days off! From now on I'll be doing a painting a day on weekdays.

This is one of the dozens of picturesque alleyways we admired while travelling in Italy earlier this year.

Day 30 - Pears in Wax Paper SOLD

10 x 10 inches, oil on panel

My 30th painting is done! I really enjoyed painting this today. I like how the tight cropping and the loose brushstrokes make the image almost abstract.

I had fun with this one, I kept it very loose, soft, and vague, and let the image slowly come into focus. Here are the in-progress shots:

Day 29 - Mermaid SOLD

5 x 7 inches, oil on panel

I bought this little ceramic figurine on eBay a couple years ago.

(eBay link will not work until 6:30 pm PST)

Day 28 - Croissant

10 x 10, oil on panel

Our favorite neighborhood restaurant, Triptych, serves fantastic croissants at their weekend brunch. I bought two today: one to eat, and one to paint. It tastes as good as it looks. I think maybe this should be titled: called "Having my Croissant and Eating it, Too"

Future Plans and Pricing

My first 30 days is almost over!

After Day 30, this Tuesday, I am going to take a break from painting while we travel for Thanksgiving. I'll be back posting daily paintings starting on Monday November 27th. From then on I'll be posting daily paintings Monday through Friday only.

Several of you have expressed interest in the "in-progress" shots, and I thought it might be interesting to show the steps of a longer painting. So in addition to the small daily paintings, I also hope to do some larger paintings and post photos of their progress each day.

Finally, pricing: After these first 30 days are over I'll be starting my daily auctions at $100, with a "Buy it Now" price of $120. I've been thrilled to sell so many of this first batch of work, thanks to everyone who has supported this project! There's a list of all the paintings in the right column, the ones still for sale are marked with the price or the link to their active eBay ad.

Thanks again for all the support! This project has been more challenging and more rewarding than I ever imagined, and all your comments and emails have really kept me going.

Ok, gotta go figure out what to paint today.....

-Sadie

Day 27 - Glass Jar SOLD

8 x 8 inches, oil on panel

Day 26 - Apple in Wax Paper SOLD

8 x 8 inches, oil on panel

Here are the in-progress shots:

Day 25 - Nude in Sheer SOLD

9 x 12 inches, oil on panel

Here you can see the brushstrokes:

Day 24 - Figs on Black SOLD

6 x 6, oil on panel

Several people have mentioned they like to see the in-progress steps, so here they are:

Day 23 - Antique Bottle SOLD

5 x 7 inches, oil on panel

This little medicine bottle has raised letters on it, making it a pretty daunting little object to paint. Today I finally felt brave enough to tackle it.

My "soft edge" experiment is really helping me; until recently I felt I had to paint a sharp edge where I saw one. The softer feel more accurately describes the light I think.

Ok, gotta run, I have a lunch date with my husband - to VOTE!

Day 22 - Garlic SOLD

8 x 8, oil on panel

This may look like a black and white painting, but in fact I use no black paint at all. And the light areas are made up of many colors to make cool and warm whites. There really aren't any "pure" whites at all.

This closeup shows more of the color:

To make this painting I used a palette of no more and no less than:
- ultramarine blue
- raw umber
- cadmium yellow medium
- permanent violet medium
- titanium white

These are the colors I use to make most my paintings. Sometimes I also use cadmium red and cerulean blue, but not today.

I have been reading a painting instruction book by David A Leffel, who does beautifully dark and mysterious still lifes. I decided to try today to approximate some of his ideas in a 1-day sketch. I'm interested in how he paints edges, and I tried to focus on leaving some edges soft and making some hard, so the objects really seem to emerge out of the darkness.

I am excited by this experiment and am looking forward to trying a multi-day painting like this. It will be much easier to build up the full tonal range after some layers of the paint have dried; in these one-day paintings I am always working wet on wet.

Day 21 - Ladies' Vanity Table

$65 - Click title to buy
8 x 8 inches, oil on panel

I worked all afernoon on a painting of this still-life, and hated it. So I started over and did this one which I am much happier with. Lucky for Nowell.... living with me after a bad painting day is not fun.

I bought this ladies' compact on eBay, it's really beautiful and I hope to paint it in more detail soon.

Day 20 - Figs on Gold SOLD

8 x 8, oil and mixed media on panel

Last night our friends came up for a visit to the Big City from where they live down on the Peninsula. Before our dinner reservations we hung out at our house and I introduced them to the wonderful combination of sliced figs on basil leaves with goat cheese.... mmmm!!!

Thanks everyone for all your continued support! I'm 2/3rds through my "30 days" project and trying to decide what my next steps will be.

I bought a few trinkets on eBay recently, maybe they will appear in my paintings soon. I'm amused at the idea of painting eBay items and then selling the paintings back on eBay - sort of a full circle experiment.