Olive Me Paints...Olives?

Sometimes I give myself an "assignment" 

as a challenge or a push in my painting journey.

Herewith, for several reasons, I set out

to see how many different ways I could paint

Olives...olives?

I've painted 100s of pears, a few dozen apples and several sunflowers in an effort to learn by repetitive rendering.  Most were serious depictions, some more bizarre than others but all as an intention to study the subject and find new ways of presenting it.  So when I had reason to paint lots and lots of olives I decided to leave "serious" behind and go for "different."

Each would be on 4" x 4" cradled hardboard panels I got from Cheap Joe's.  Each would be a green olive with a red pimento in it.  Therein the rules ceased.  

Let the fun begin:

gold gesso set the stage for a dramatic olive,

I think the "pimento" looks like a red hole instead of a pepper piece?

oh well...onward

can you guess where this olive is residing?

trust me, without live "models" these little buggers were hard to depict

this collage piece was fun but oh so tiny for my challenged tearing-

fingers, the further back you are the more olive-y it looks

this was my feeble attempt at a wire sculpture olive...

I enjoy "mixed media" but

you have to use your imagination to know what it is

Now this was truly experimental, the olive is painted 

with a coat of oxidizing copper paint which dries and then

is reapplied, while wet it is then sprayed with green patina aging solution

which causes it to rust into this green on copper patina.

Both of these products are made by Modern Masters.

this is started with a bunch of random designs done in acrylic,

then with a background color a design is selected and the "negative" parts painted

out to reveal the olive

couldn't leave out fabric, could I?  a little boro, a little embroidery,

a touch of quilting and olive it works together

and now a clay olive....polymer clay, which is sculpted and baked in

the oven, this is my fav pimento: red cloth stuffed and glued into the 

pitted hole

admitting that I was running out of ideas on where

to place these olives I decided they could resemble

balloons at a party...

One last 4 x 4 remains...no ideas surfaced.  I think I will stick a fork in

olive this and call it done!

So what did I learn?  (1) that I really do not enjoy painting this small...I need space, I need more real estate, I am a 9 x 12 and beyond (preferably beyond) kinda gal;  (2) I do like the exercise of thinking of multiple ways to render something, perhaps I should make more effort to do this as sketching prep before a LARGER format of something; and finally, (3) I like drama, the contrast of bright colors and the play between dark darks and light lights.  

So what did I do with so many similar paintings?  Olive them went with my love to new homes.  I'll let you wonder about just who might want such a piece.

Olive Me thanks Olive You (for reading),

Cindy