Pears-Day 1

© Ellen Blonder

My friend Janet shared her abundant pear harvest a couple of weeks ago. I put some in my favorite green bowl and photographed them before they ripened. I'm still exploring painting against a dark ground (see Rose in Bottle posts), so here's the first day's underpainting. I used to think detailed leaves would be much harder to paint than smooth open areas--like the surface of the pears or inside of the bowl--but the opposite is usually true. The painting is on a 16 x 16-inch sheet of masonite.