New Painting: "Raw Vegetables Still Life" DSDF Challenge

Since moving to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, I have been looking to "warm up" a new painting routine for the summer, now that I am finally settled in. The Different Strokes From Different Folks Challenge seemed to be the perfect thing to start with, even though it is a departure from my landscapes. Here is my painting:

My Painting, "Raw Vegetables Still Life"

It is an oil painting done on 5 x 7" canvas board. I have never done the DSDF challenge before, though I have been lurking on the blog for a couple of months. It is a challenge for artists everywhere via blog, started by artist Karin Jurick. How it works is she posts a reference image photograph every week or two, and all different artists interpret the photograph through their art in different ways, and then post photographs of their art. It is really interesting to see many different takes on one subject. Here is the reference image from this challenge:

I have hesitated in participating before, because I usually do not like to make art from photographs. Any time I do, it has to be from images I took myself from a place I have observed for myself many times.

That being said, I have really admired all the artwork that results from this challenge every couple of weeks. I marvel at how each artist interprets the photograph in their own style, through very different eyes. Jurick does impressive paintings herself. This seemed to be the perfect time to try this challenge, and I am very pleased with the result. I studied the photograph for a long time, cropped and enhanced the colors and forms in my own mind, and produced it on the small canvas.