Day 8 of the Strada Challenge

Trio of Onions, 6″ x 8″, pastel

We woke today to 38 degrees and although that may feel warm in the winter time, it felt really cold this morning. Coming out of a warm summer, our blood needs time to thicken up. The temperature wasn’t rising quickly so I decided to do another still life in my studio.

I checked the kitchen to see what I could find in the way of fruits and veggies. I had a plate of these 3 onions out on the countertop from our CSA farm share. The combination of the vibrant wine red onion against the golden yellow onions begged for a complementary color to set them off. I found a teal silk turtleneck in my winter closet which was the perfect color. I used a burnt orange paper and you can just barely see some of the paper showing through in the teal background which creates a little sparkle.

The light bounced off the teal shirt onto the onions and the onions bounced color on each other and on the teal surface. It was a great exercise in the study of light and shadows.

Photo of painting setup of onions.

©Francesca Droll, Trio of Onions set up