Salad

Beautifully done. You have really captured the textures of onion skin, carrot and red pepper. The great work on the glass captured my eye first along with the placement of the red pepper and highlights on that lovely large yellow pepper.
I haven’t yet attempted such a painting, but you may inspire me.

Thank you very much ForestVueGallery! Thanks for answering the question what caught your eye and in which order!

I stuck with seascape paining. Which looks so deceptively easy, but I cannot figure out how to proceed and this is on top that i have a tutorial that I am supposed to follow and I cannot follow it... This is maddening.

So to get out of that problem I decided that I need to stop following tutorials for a while and go on my own. This is my second still life overall. First one was in 2020.

I think it turned out to be good for me to do something out of ordinary.

Please give it a try, I am sure you will succeed and will try something unusual and refreshing!

Yes quite nice! I first noticed the yellow pepper in conjunction with the bottle. I have never tried glass because it intimidates me a little. I think yours is terrific. I like the positioning of the veggies/colors. Very nice carrot! Great onion and peppers. The cabbage is a little "flat" to me - not sure why? I can't believe this is only your 2nd still life!

I agree with ForestVueGallery, I love the textures. The Olive Oil is definitely the first object to catch my eye., second for me was the onion, red pepper, then carrot, bell pepper and the I am left oscillating for a spell before settling on the cabbage. The lines from the carrot and red pepper guided my view. I have been reading about composition and recently found this blog very interesting: https://www.creativebloq.com/digital-art/tips-composition-31514496. The Olive Oil sits perfectly for the rule of thirds with the bottle neck at the Primary Point, so I suspect that was intentional! Although it was the last object I saw the texture on the cabbage was instantly recognisable and the green tones perfect. This looks like a great painting exercise.

@ flippergirlpaints - thank you for your response to my questions. I agree with you about cabbage. No matter how hard I tried to make it more dimensional it did not work, and at the same time I also did not want to bring it forward as it is there only to hold the whole shape together.
And today most of those ingredients became a soup :) I took my revenge on cabbage.

@rah - you are so kind and thank you so very much for that awesome link.
I need to confess my process and tell that i did not follow it properly .
1. Find models - Done
2. Set up scene - Done
3. Rearrange few times - Done
4. Thumbnail sketch - Missed
5. Sketch on canvas - Done
6. Adjust composition on canvas to draw the eyes - Done
7. Block in with medium tone - Partially done
8. Paint the hell out of it - Done.

That rule of thirds - it just happen unconsciously because probably when arranging and rearranging the scene (#2 &3) internal sense tells you when to stop. I would notice it if I did not miss the thumbnail sketch.

The link is awesome, this is the most detailed that I have seen so far on internet. I would really suggest you to start a thread on Forum with that link. I think it will be a fantastic knowledge share for our friends here.

@flippergirl - this is the first still life - https://www.twoinchbrush.com/originals/Sunnylady/leather-glass-and-wood

I followed the process from drawmixpaint website (Mark Carder). It is super detailed and very helpful. Search for his youtube videos and glass will be easy through this detailed approach.

Thanks Sunnylady!

A wonderful still life Sunnylady!!
The items are so recognizable and look very appetizing and real.
My eyes go from the yellow pepper to the olive oil and then counter clockwise.

You are getting better and better my sweet friend!!

@Voy - thank you my dear friend. I kind of feel tired following tutorials (been almost 2.5 years now) and needed to do something on my own.

@Voy - thank you for your response by the way about eye movement.

@guna - Thank you very much Guna. I think that 10 min exercise from Paint coach with apple really works as it makes me observe the colors, values, forms. I am also in the middle of the online class from www.nma.art - Composition for visual artists that helps to think about composition and notice things that I never noticed before. I really hope to get to big museum to see how this class affects my perception and to analyze why some paintings may look more attractive to me than the others.
Recently I watched Disney Cinderella cartoon from perspective of composition, and sometimes do for short parts of other movies. I think to give the same treat to myself and watch Little Mermaid next.

@guna - yes I watch and process on the go. If something interesting I scroll back to rewatch and sometimes pause.

I had lion king tape as a kid and was waiting forward to see those cartoons on sundays on TV when they showed them.
I had a book made of Disney cartoon with little mermaid, it was my favorite.

They are so true about the internal critic being the worst, but after I had class with the man who paints for 50 years and he still has failures I found courage to tell myself to stop criticizing myself and treat each painting as a learning that makes me a better artist. At the end if 10% of paintings are superb, I want to keep only those and destroy repaint on top of others. ( not there yet, but I am working on myself)

@guna - if you read a link shared by rah in his post it will take you to a very nice article about composition.
You are totally right it is not the easy topic to understand, but reading and repeating the same with different couches slowly incorporated into the brain and understanding comes out of it. Slowly but surely as they say.

@guna - if you read a link shared by rah in his post it will take you to a very nice article about composition.
You are totally right it is not the easy topic to understand, but reading and repeating the same with different couches slowly incorporated into the brain and understanding comes out of it. Slowly but surely as they say.