Roses and Green Apples II

I wanted another shot at the roses, plus I wanted to make the background more neutral.
"Roses and Green Apple II", watercolor, 3x4 inches, POR

Roses and Green Apple

I used the Yarka pan colors again. Just four: cad yellow, maddder lake red, cobalt and a bit of yellow green. "Roses and Green Apple", watercolor, 3x4 inches, POR

Blue Vase and Lemon

My good friend Janet lent me her cake watercolor set: Yarka St. Petersburg. I wanted to see how/if they're different from tubes. I really like them. Thanks Janet! (Yes, I have another friend named Janet, Janet.) Anyway, I only used three pans cause I did a limited palette of yellow, red and blue. It was easy to lift off all the colors. Bonus! The image on the right shows the lemon having had some dirty color lifted off. I think it's an improvement.
"Blue Vase and Lemon", 4x3 inches, watercolor on board, POR

Sunflowers

This is a painting from my archives. My back is pretty sore today so I don't think I'll be spending time at the drawing board. Since I've been painting small for over 10 years I have plenty of paintings to "draw" on (pardon the pun). "Sunflowers", 4x3 inches, oil on board, POR

More Strawberries

I did something on this one in which I would love some feedback. It's that Chinese white mixed with a bit of winsor green in the background on the right above the middle strawberry. It's a holdover from oils. I'm wondering if it's too light? Or forget about it altogether? Maybe I'll put a piece of acetate over it and paint it out and see what it looks like. It's also on the same plane as the highlight on the small pitcher. Seems like it's gonna go....
p.s. The new version is on the right. I took out the chinese white and put another layer of color. Hmm...
"Strawberries II" 5x4.5 inches, watercolor 140lb paper, POR

Strawberries

I wanted to do a piece using a negative painting approach. I also did an underpainting using a wet on wet technique. Took me two days but I think I like it. "Strawberries" 5x4.5 inches, 140 lb paper, POR

Two Pears

I worked on some watercolors today but didn't finish so I thought I'd post an older oil. I've been reading Linda Kemp's book Watercolor: Painting Outside the Lines. It explains negative painting really well. Lots of other things also. I highly recommend it. She also said that Holbein paints stay wetter longer and that she recommends working with wet paint instead of reconstituted pigment. Anyone have any thoughts on this? I wonder if I need to worry about that since I paint so small. Time and practice will tell me.
I can't help but mention that I'll be getting together with elementary and high school friends that I haven't seen in 40 years as a result of classmates.com. I'm so excited to see them. I know it's off topic but it's so exciting that I can't help but think it's affecting my work this week. (In a good way.)
"Two Pears" oil on board, 3x4 inches, POR