Stem Cell Study

Oil on Canvas 5x7

So after painting the Delicata squash and tomato, I put them in the refrigerator to retard further spoilage, with the plan to reposition them and do another painting the next day. Hang in here, this is a funny story. Denny called me to dinner and what do I see coming out of the oven but my beautiful Delicata squash. Death by baking. The tomato was safe. He doesn't eat tomatoes. I started laughing even as I mourned the loss of my model, but then started scrambling through the trash for the STEM. There it was, clean but broken. "Oh no, my beautiful stem!" Denny was a tiny bit puzzled by my disappointment. "Can't you just make it up?" Well, I guess he has a point. I can paint whatever I like into a painting. But there is something about doing these still lifes and trying to really see what's there that precludes additions.
So, I grabbed a butternut squash and taped the stem together and glued it on.
And now I have learned that butternuts are not much fun to paint compared to delicata. As a matter of fact, it was really hard. I went through green shadow, umber shadow, blue shadow. None were right. I finally decided that to balance the red tomato a bit of red needed to go into the shadow which turned it purple. Then I added some of my new cad yellow deep to the lit body of the squash. Straying from my usual approach I found the shadow color first and the lit color second.

thanks for looking!