6″ x 8″, oil on canvas.
Today I did some colour studies. Single Japanese pear place on red, blue, green and yellow ground. I was aware that I got less and less loose with each one – maybe doing them all in one session was pushing it a little. It was really interesting to see the different colours that appear on the pear. The pear itself is a very pale creamy yellow and reflected the ground colours beautifully. The red was seriously in your face – nothing subtle going on here and the glow on the pear was brilliant. The blue fabric is a pale coeruleum pashmina with touches of pale lilac and paler turquoise and the pear shadow hues became much more subtle and soft. For the yellow I used a yellow top – quite a bright yellow – and the pear was almost camouflaged on it. The shadows seemed much darker though than they had on the blue. Finally for the green I used an olivey green sweater as my ground but in the light it became quite a golden colour and it seems like its only in the background that it shows as green. The shadows and lights were much cooler with only touches of warmth showing on the edges of the pear and at the stem. Interesting exercise and I learnt a lot. They look pretty cool all together too! I’m beginning to feel much more confident about moving the paint around the canvas and doing wet in wet. Another step forward!

New Year’s Resolution 6 – Make notes of lessons learned.

Today was extremely chilly and there was frost on the ground – the first frost I have seen in years! All the locals were wrapped in their blanket/shawls and when my husband asked the driver why they wear blankets and not jackets, his response was that jackets are much more expensive at ……………. $8.50 whereas a blanket/shawl costs only $3 or $4 and is much more useful because you can also wrap it around your head and across your mouth like a scarf as well as it covering your body and your hands. A jacket, however, only covers your arms and body. The soldiers guarding the road outside the Pakistani Parliament were dressed in greatcoats similar to the ones that used to be worn by British soldiers, their hands shoved deep in the pockets and then scarves wrapped around their heads, like a ladies headscarf, with their berets perched on top, kalashnikovs slung across their shoulders. Quite a picture.

One thing that is noticeable here is how few overweight people you see. They are also small. I am only 5′ 5″, very average for the western world, and here I am an amazon woman and tower over all but one person in my office!