Green Bottle and Garlic

This painting was completed in June of 2009 at the Fine Arts League of the Carolinas.  My teacher, John Mac Kay let me use the green bottle which he purchased at an antique store in Asheville.  He forbade me to dust it as he loves dusty old bottles.  The goblet is my parent's silver aniversary goblet.  The bowl is a piece of NC pottery that is part of my pottery collection.  It has all of the colors that are in the cloth which is the backdrop for the painting.  The garlic had a strange history: pieces went and new pieces came.  Probably the ones that went found homes in other students' still life paintings or in culinary endeavors in the kitchen. 

Sharon's Iris

This was painted at the beginning of the 2009 spring quarter at the Fine Arts League of the Carolinas.  John Mac Kah, my landscape teacher, assigned five monochromatic underpaintings of which this painting was one.                      My neighbor, Sharon, has a beautiful cottage garden complete with white picket fence.  Her irs caught my attention and so a beautiful spring afternoon was devoted to painting this scene.