Sunrise and Apple

Sunrise, Las Cruces, N.M.

How about this for a view to wake up to?
( from our deck.)

Artist Note.

It was my first day of classes in the new studio.
The focus was on testing memory against reality.

Everyone had to draw an apple from memory.
With every one's eyes closed I first led them through imagery
with shape, volume, details like stem, base, surface, etc.
Next step was to draw the apple created in their imagination.
The results were excellent and surprised the ones who thought they
could not draw anything unless they had something to copy from.
I then gave everyone an apple to paint as realistically
as they could. As they had already learned to fully explore
the essence of an apple, the results were pretty dramatic.
I then did a small demo of an apple with the emphasis on edges.
If I had done the demo first they would have been trying to
duplicate what I had done instead of being truly original.
The final step was to freely paint an apple in any color and style
they chose. It was fine to use the inspiration of the demo brush
and knife work to add to their previous accomplishments.
 It was a great session and I get a genuine high
seeing how well all the artists do.

This little apple demo was on edges.
Notice on the photo of the apple
below how the wall background color
was pretty even.
In the painting I varied the colors
and values to give a more interesting
and painterly effect.