#250 Pepper Top

I love painting anything with red paint! I always have, I particularly enjoy using a red to orange palette, only made more exciting with the introduction of some green. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#249 Magnet

I love anything that is the same in real life as it is in the cartoons! Horseshoe magnets certainly come in that category. This has been used today (not to drag a mouse across a room that has eaten some cheese laced with iron filings, oh no) but, to test our saucepans in readiness for the excitement that is our new induction hob. The results are mixed, some will work some won't. To the ACME store. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#248 Smaller Slice of Bread and Butter

I nearly finished eating the bread from last night, and this was waiting for me this evening on my 'painting platform' (the name I have given the little stand I put the objects on) so I painted it...it seemed rude not to. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

ps the bread and butter pudding was very tasty!

#247 Slice of Bread

I made bread and butter pudding earlier this evening, this slice was surplus to requirements so I ate half of it and painted half of it. I am now off to eat the b&b pudding. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#246 Plastic Sword

A fine blade forged from that most mysterious and powerful of materials, plastic. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#245 Foam

This is a piece of foam leftover from cutting out a seat pad for a lovely little wicker chair we have. There were lots of fantastically shaped pieces leftover, I eventually settled on this one because of the two 'horns' on the left hand side, which give it its distinctive shape. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#244 Half Eaten Doughnut

I am feeling much better today and, as you can see, I am craving sweet things to help get my body back up to normal operating velocity! Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#243 Two Fruit Jellies

The last two sweets in the car when I picked Debbie up from work tonight, good colour and good taste, pineapple and peach. Oil on gesso 16cm x12cm.

#242 Corn Thin

I haven't felt all that good over the last couple of days, and this is one of the few things I have been able to eat today. A corn thin, it's a bit like a rice thin except its made from corn. Its a bit like eating a popcorn cake. Anyway quite bland and easy to digest so these, along with chicken soup, have been my sustenance for the day. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#241 Brush Soap

This is a bar of specially formulated brush soap, for paint brushes. The thing is becasue I have been painting every day for the last 241 days I haven't needed to wash my brushes out properly and I havent used this for a while. So, I painted it instead! Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#240 Lettuce Leaf III

and another...this one was the crispiest but also the bitterest. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#239 Lettuce Leaf II

My punishment for not painting a lettuce leaf for so long...paint another. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#238 Lettuce leaf

I can't believe I haven't painted a lettuce leaf before, we get so many out of the garden I must just take them for granted well, not tonight! Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#237 Squashed Scourer

I didn't know what to paint this evening. I had a good rummage around the studio, not much took my fancy until I found this squashed scouring pad, great colour and interesting shape so, here it is ..enjoy! Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#236 2 Cyclamen seed Pods

These are great, most plants do their thing in the spring and summer months not these little feelas, they have these amazingly curly seed pods that 'spit' their seeds out of these round seed pods. Planted them out yesterday and they looked so good today I had to paint a couple. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#235 Two Raspberries

Here is a painting of two rescued raspberries, rescued from the birds at the allotment. Birds will usually think a berry is ripe enough to eat just before you do. So, when you don't really expect the twigs you put in the ground in February to bear fruit in July you dont net them. Although, I think we have got about a half of a punnet from 6 twigs.. not bad! Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#234 Two Pieces of Slate

Been hard at it in the garden today, very hot so, lots of breaks! These pieces of slate are taken from the top dressing we put on the pots. Didnt actually do that today but spent some time looking at the pots whilst taking breaks. After all, 'A garden takes a lot of looking at'...... I don't believe I just quoted Alan Titchmarsh. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#233 Pan au Chocolat

Happy Bastille Day! I had to paint something french today and here it is, my favoured french pastry the Pan aux Chocolat. I have some very foggy memories from college trips to and through France. Sitting in French motorway sevice stations at breakfast with a cup of sweet, black coffee and one of these. While desperately trying to reconcile the fact that I wont be getting any more sleep this morning. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#232 Two Chocolates

More Birthday pressies! Debbie picked out some of my favourite choccy flavours, these are two of them; a chocolate truffle and a white chocolate strawberry creme. The strawberry creme is THE most gorgeous chocolate of its kind I have ever tasted... the soft creamy strawberry magic stuff and the creamy white choc covering mmmmmmm. I haven't tried the other one yet! Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#231 Wind Up Monkey

Happy Birthday to me! This joyful little fellow was one of my presents this morning, you wind him up and he moves from left to right on his knuckles...hilarious! Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#230 Sweetpea

Another offering from the garden, a sweatpea this time, pretty but not edible. I am already looking forward to tomorrows painting, I dont know what its going to be yet but, the 12th of July is usually my birthday and I am hoping that tomorrow is no different from the last 35 years. Birthday cake anyone? Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#229 Gooseberry

A nice partner to last nights painting, green and red and sweet and sour! Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#228 Strawberry

 

Spent most of today driving from Norfolk to Cheltenham, which didn't offer up many objects to paint today so, I raided the garden to see what had grown since Sunday when I last went out there and lo and behold a new flush of strawberries had appeared. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#227 Golf Tee

 

One the reasons for coming across the country to the homelands of Norfolk was to cash in the golf lessons I bought for my Dads Birthday last year. We had our swings looked at yesterday at Sprowston Manor golf course, near Norwich. The profesional even compared my swing to that of Tiger Woods. Well he put a photo of both of us next to each other!

#226 Ice Cream Sweet

 

This is one of my nephews Josh and Jack's sweeties (or 'weets') That I HAD to take with me today! Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm .

#225 Poppy

Happy birthday Mum! Being a seasonal flower and one of my mums favourites I thought I would paint a poppy. I also though I would paint one that I had just tried to open up a bit too early, just like I did when I was a young fella, I don't think Mum liked that very much! I only wanted to see the pretty flowers! Oil on gesso 16ccm x 12cm.

#224 Freezer Bag Clip

I'm not sure what my life would be like without these, doesn't bear thinking about really. There would be peas all over the place for a start! I like the red ones best so, I painted one. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#223 Punschroll Cake

This is one of those purchases made on looks alone, it tastes horrible! It is a swedish cake from Ikea in, approprately, the colours of the swedish flag. Yes, we have been to Ikea I now await with anticipation/fear for the Kitchen to be delivered in neat, flat boxes by men in a big yellow and blue van. I do hope you are all looking forward to a series of kitchen paintings sometime at the end of August! Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#222 Number 2 Printing Block

Happy Birthday Jack! This might not be my first choice for a painting to mark my nephew's birthday. I was going to paint a red balloon like the blue one I painted for his brother Josh's Birthday. However, last night I realised that, not only is it Jacks 2nd Birthday, it is also day #222 of this project. With such an amazing coincidence I had to paint a number 2 of some sort. So I went 'on the rob' to the printmaking department at work and borrowed this. I hope you can see it, its quite dark in the photo. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#221 Two Matches

From a moth to the flame. Well, pre and post flame anyway! The match at the front represents me at the beginning of this week and the one behind represents me at the end of this week!

Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.

#220 Moth

I have been waiting for another interesting insect to die (peacefully) in my vicinity since I painted the Bee. This unassuming yet perfect little specimen spent its last moments on the bedroom windowsill possibly perishing in the heat from the last few days. Yesterday I wanted to paint a ladybird given their recent news coverage, the one I found was docile, but alive. In my excitement I thought I might be able to paint him alive, if he held still long enough..... ah, he flew away. Oil on gesso 16cm x 12cm.