A Pomegranate Still Life

My painting productivity seems to have taken a hit lately.  It's not that I haven't been painting, its just that I've had too many projects going on at once and they've all been "in progress" with nothing being "done."  There is something irritating and unsettling about not coming to a place of closure on something, even if you're not spending an inordinately long time in the process.  It's much more satisfying to me to have several things going that are staggered in their "doneness" so that there's a completion point for one or the other in the foreseeable future.  Lately all my projects (I've got three in works right now) have kind of lined up in the development time/space continuum -- all pretty much following the same schedule.  In theory I could just put one or two aside and concentrate on a single project for a while to get in out ahead, but that doesn't work practically because I can't really work for a full three-hour class on any one painting.  Things get too wet and mushy and you just have to switch to another project.  I am more or less forced to have at least two things going at once, or waste my class time.

But fortunately the log jam is beginning to break.  I did wrap up two of them this week and I've managed to photograph one of them:

This is an original composition using Stacy's china and some pomegranates given us by a family friend (right before Stacy transformed them into jelly).  I'm trying to do more and more original work and less copying.  I have nothing against copying - its a great way to develop your skills - but at the end of the day, you can't really sell a copy or enter it into competitions, and someday I would like to be able to that.  So this is one I pulled together myself.  I'm pretty happy with it.  I didn't know if I'd be able to pull off the detail in the china, and there are a couple of places where I know I didn't, but overall, it came out better than I'd expected.  I sure love still life!

I've got ideas for my next two projects, but I'm always open for suggestions or requests!