When it rains, paint still life indoors

The weather wasn't cooperating for our plein-air painting day this week so Angela suggested that we could paint still life at her house. She set up a really nicely composed still life of onions and shallots. I thought that onions shouldn't be such a hard subject to paint ... I have since changed my mind. I thought that I was taking my time and not rushing but I got through doing two paintings and Angela didn't finish one. The results certainly showed that I was rushing as neither of my efforts were great and Angela came up with quite a nice painting. She worked on a board that was prepared with pastel ground so her surface was quite textured. I was working on a board that had been gessoed with Daniel Smith Venetian Red which is really intense. For  my first painting, I chose to put out a naples yellow instead of a cad yellow which was probably a mistake. What I learned from this session is that I need a lot more practice mixing colors. Below are a few photos; one with me painting and a good view of the still life setup. The second photo is of Angela's painting.

Shirley painting the onion still life

Angela's still life