Before I go too far I want to remember to say please sign up for my Blog . I always forget this in my excitement of having something to share.
Today the "share" is about when to stop and when to keep going. In the past the top painting would have been where I stopped. There is nothing wrong with it but I think when you push further and make the value spectrum more extreme you end up with a better painting.
One of the signs of a beginning painter is when all the colors are right but the values are all in the mid-range.
I am guilty of that crime more times than I would like to admit

What I have learned so far:
Dare to go further and darker. It may not be the painting you wanted or hoped for but it won't be "meh".
I like to say I enjoy failing from a higher rung.
I'm failing , and falling , failing and falling and ...here is the good part. Learning happens.

What's black and white and gray all over? The black and white challenge for the week at the Daily Paintworks.
The task was to paint only black and or white objects.
I painted five all together but these three made the cut.
The first on the left is my final entry. I feel that it "fulfills the brief" as they say on the Great British Bake Off ( or as we like to call it the GBBO).

What I have learned so far:
Once again value was key. That is to say how dark or light something is as it relates to what is next to it.
I do not have black or gray in a tube so I mix them . I think it gives richer color, less flat overall.
This was a week of black and white thinking in my personal life too.
What I learned is that life is really lived in the gray areas. Not in the extremes.

  Today I am posting a picture of the place I find the most peace. This is where the sausage is made. My studio. The newest thing is in the foreground. As you can see it is Feb. in Vermont and finding things in bloom is only a memory so I purchased these beautiful "imposters". Yes, they are not real peonies but you could have fooled me!
I hope they fooled you .

What I have learned so far:

You may disagree but I have rationalized this purchase by saying they are "real fakes". Kind of like a set of dentures ( that is probably a terrible analogy) . They don't pretend to be the real thing but they get the job done.
In the meantime I have noticed I respond to them as if they are the real deal. So I am either easily fooled or I am even more in love with peonies than I thought. They truly can do no wrong.