From the Vineyard, With Love.

This painting is yet to be named, but it's finished! It might get a little bit of tweaking later on tonight, but it's just going to be a couple of tiny adjustments. It's acrylic on canvas, 15" x 30".

I took photos of grapes last year in the summer while visiting the Chicago Botanic Garden with the intention of doing a painting of grapes, but I've decided to do a series and already have another canvas sketched out (this same size) ready for another grape painting. Last year I decided to branch out from my usual subject matter (tropical things) and work more on something that can be enjoyed universally, since the mid-atlantic area isn't so much on tropical.

This painting was also a BIG challenge because I've never had to paint shadows like this before. In my photography class in college, we learned to take pictures outside on an overcast day to avoid harsh shadows, so that's what I always did. I didn't have that luxury at the Botanic Garden since there was only one day we could fit it into our schedule. Shadows are funny, because you're sitting in front of the canvas painting them and they just look like sharply contrasting weird blobby shapes that don't make any sense (especially when you haven't colored in all of the things around them). But then you walk across the room and take it all in after you've been working on the painting for 4+ hours from 6 inches away, and it all comes together and ends up making sense.

I am pleased. And this one only took about a month and a half- and that even includes a 2 week hiatus during the holidays.