We have a neighbor: Rosemarie. If there’s a knock on the door in early July, there will probably be an overflowing bowl of apricots behind that knock. When her fruit tree overflows, neighbors reap the rewards. I set out to paint the apricots and began by asking myself: what makes an apricot an apricot? I wondered what the visual signals are that make a peach look like a peach, and an apricot look like an apricot. Adding some cherries helped to show size perspective. I did an earlier version of this painting that was too muted, too muddy, so I repainted it with a bright orange underpainting, and I adjusted the chroma levels. I also made the cherries (which were dark burgundy in real life) a brighter, more vibrant read so they screamed “cherries!”

This is an 8×10 oil painting on canvas panel, which is, of course, named “Rosemarie’s Apricots.”