Lemon Studies

Our neighbours gave us a bag of lemons yesterday and I was pleased to see some had leaves and stems attached on them still. I had not painted with oils in a while, so late this afternoon, I got out a palette and oil paints, turps and some oil medium and decided to paint a couple of small studies of the lemons with leaves. I hadn't done a still life for a while either, so that was good to do too. It makes you think and consider what you are seeing. And also you have to make some decisions. I intended to do them as small alla prima studies. Alla Prima paintings are done in a single session. So you capture what you see at the time and in that painting session and don't muck around with it any more after that. It is a good practice for me to do this. I am thinking I should do one or two of these a week, of whatever I have on hand to paint that day. It's a great way to tune up and warm up before doing other painting too.

I painted the lemon studies on small primed canvases sized 8"x 10". I did one of them more zoomed in than the other, as you can see. The other has a bit more space around it...just worked out that way. It was a nice little painting session, no more than 2 hours and it was fun to use the oils again. A great warm up for more painting with them this coming weekend !

Local voting likes the zoomed-in lemon study better. Which do you like ?