Eggplants, zucchinis and sprouting onion

This was an oil study of our vegetable bowl, which I liked because of the weird shapes and contrasts of colours of the zucchinis against the dark aubergine and red-maroons of the onions between, that really caught my fancy while painting it. The basic cotton tablecloth in the morning sunshine looked kind of great, with ethereal blues and soft whites, and then the electric blue of our pretty ordinary fruit bowl maybe set off the blackish purples of the eggplants and murky green zucchinis in a cool way. I also really liked the unfortunately sprouting onion left too long, with its fresh green leaves curling out; it added a touch of life and buoyancy against the more macabre vegetables. The sprout growth also add a kind compositional off-set to the round forms, which I liked formally; it also reminded me of some of Van Gogh's onion and potato paintings where he loved things sprouting and growing, and a representation of the resilience of life and used it as a hopeful signal. That's why I decided to add a zucchini flower in the foreground, to really emphasise the hopeful aspect, despite the quirky and dark vegies.
It's a pretty simple still-life and helped me explore light and form which I enjoyed painting with their weird colours. However, despite the subject matter of unusual and un-pretty vegetables, in the end it has charm and I think it is kind of sweet.

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Recently I joined a Plein Air group of friends that goes out once a week to local areas of bush around Canberra and that's lead to a return to traditional landscape skills. I'm posting the results of t
my plein air outings and experiments, from cheaper quick oil studies to larger more expensive works that are fully completed. I love painting in the outdoors because there's something that happens when you're painting outside that captures the atmosphere and qualities of light that just doesn't occur in the studio or using photographs.

I usually paint scenes to which I have an emotional response, whether it's a still-life of a domestic setting that tells a story of that house, or a street scene of old Sydney suburbs where I grew up; but in every case I'm choose scenes that have some emotional resonance for me. in currently doing a series about Sydney urban scenes, where I love painting the special light and architecture of Sydney and the feeling of the harbour city that I miss so much. I really love the European Impressionists and like to try to see and paint Sydney with a feeling of their sensibilities and techniques, like applying the quiet harmonies of Sisley to Paddington houses or Monet's prismatic colour and love of sunshine and different qualities of light to Sydney harbour scenes.

I also love painting scenes of my household, so I will be doing a series of paintings of Interiors like scenes from bathrooms or our dining rooms, where I paint my family doing small things like reading or relaxing or interacting with each other. I really love the Intimist painters and really enjoy painting these kind of 'mis-en-scenes' of regular family life like little dramas or painting still-lives of things like stuff strewn in a table-tops or an array of ornaments or even a meal being prepared on a kitchen bench that are just snippets of the haphazard moments of daily life., where these ordinary objects are beautiful as with Matisse's bedrooms and vases and table-tops . With my paintings of these kind of domestic snapshots, I'm really inspired by the ideas of the Vuillard and Bonnard that real life happens mostly in doors and these domestic scenes can show something greater of moments of beauty or grace that happen within mundane places and routines, and as does another favourite inspiration Fairfield Porter does in his painting of family and friends, convey that life lovingly and the small things that make it up affectionately.