Pumpkin Soup

Its coming up to pumpkin soup weather. Well, soon I hope as its still been quite warm and muggy the last couple of days. If you are going to buy a pumpkin to make soup why not use it for a painting first. This one is a Queensland Blue pumpkin and its my favourite type for soup. Funny thing is you do get to know the object of your painting so well that you feel rather remorseful when its time to cut it up :(. There is of course a story behind my painting. Many years ago Bob and I lived in the country. The locals put together a cookbook of their favourite recipes. The simple but extremely delicious pumpkin soup recipe in the top right hand corner of the painting is Barbara Pym's recipe and I think of her whenever I make it. She still cooked and baked amazing food on a wood burning stove even in the middle of summer, and took out a lot of prizes in the cooking section of the local show. Of course that's not the only pumpkin story I have. I remember endless drawings in art school with a pumpkin as a model. Tonal drawings, contour drawings, drawing on coloured paper adding the highlights rather than the shadows. Yeah well they do have interesting shapes don't they?

Pumpkin

mixed media on canvas

50.8x60.9cm (20"x24")

11 Weeks and Counting

I started a new canvas today. Its 11 weeks and counting till our exhibition opens, yikes! I found a picture of houses in Santorini. Ok I found the picture in a magazine in the hospital waiting room while I was waiting for Bob. I was so inspired by this picture I silently tore it out in a really sneaky fashion and put it in my bag. Its a picture of those white sugar cube houses with blue doors and window frames. I'm going out on a limb with this one. Its not my usual type of painting as I usually paint everything bigger than life size. I've got the usual fear happening. The fear I have at the beginning of every painting and I don't feel confident with the outcome. Anyhoo, like Laura says, I'm turning up to the easel and we'll see what happens. What's the worse that can happen? If the painting doesn't work out I can just gesso over it and do something else, right?

I'm also in the planning stages of work depicting Zoe's dangling legs. I have a series of photos where she's wearing striped tights, little white ankle socks with black shoes etc. In some she's got her ankles crossed, another her toes are turned in etc. I thought they would make a nice series of paintings. Children have really expressive feet and legs. Just by changing the position of the feet you get a whole different feel. Anyway its in early planning stages at the moment. I will have to see where it takes me.

With autumn here I also have the urge to photograph a big Queensland blue pumpkin. I can then paint it and make a batch of pumpkin soup too. That should keep me off the streets for awhile.