Fruit

I've become so interested in painting in gouache, not to mention making these little ATC/ACEO sized painting (2.5" x 3.5") and suddenly the idea of painting fruits from life in simple settings has captivated me. It came out of a thread at Wet Canvas where we're featuring different subjects each month. I wasn't too thrilled with painting still life--then.

NOW I'm enthralled.

Two Navels

Lean on Me

Pear in Blue

It just goes to show that the fruit of your life may be somewhat unexpected to you, but it comes of a lot of little things dovetailing, however unexpectedly. I made a painting of oranges because I was given a delightful gift of a HUGE box of oranges fresh from a California grove. I wanted to prepare some paintings to show on the thread I mentioned above, since I'm hosting it for a couple of months, so I plopped two oranges on a white napkin and gave it a go. I didn't sit down and think it through or make a plan to start doing still life. I didn't search for the perfect fruit to paint. All the parts simply came together.

The fruit of a life grows out of what you do daily. It isn't what you plan to be or strive to become, it's what comes of daily choices. I'm a Christian so I sit down with the Lord every day to study the Bible and pray. That decision is as natural as morning coffee now, not something I have to make myself do. And from my study and prayer come the daily decisions I make, some small, some large, some easy, some hard.

Just the way that painting these oranges grew out of the circumstances of my life, so the fruit of life grows naturally out of daily decisions, out of who we are. I've never seen a tree striving to put out fruit. I suspect not one of those oranges I received was a result of a tree that squeezed and concentrated or planned and hatched a plot to grow it. They were the result of a tree, roots, sunshine, water, as well as the care and labor given by the grower.

Naturally. 


"To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven..." Ecclesiastes 3:1