Outstanding work Helle. God bless.

excellent my friend

Beautiful painting !!!!!

Wonderful still life painting!

cool

A very nice piece of work Helle.

Wow Helle, I simply love this wonderful pastel drawing.

I prefer the painting one too. It is always amazing what a difference the background makes to anything.

Fantastic painting my friend... Fantastic talent also !!!

Excellent shot, fantastic colors and details

Still it's nice, even if it doesn't measure up to your mental image of it!

I just looked at the painted version and will comment on it also: I love the contrast this has to that one. This has a different type of subtlety to it that appeals to me, and it's enjoyable for that. This one makes me think of a book cover, because (lets face it,) I'm obsessed with those things! And I have to say that this makes me want to write something about wine and grapes and moonlight. And I think that is what really makes this different from the other version: this has a wonderful sense of raw moonlight: the kind you would see when you're just sitting somewhere, not really paying attention to it, but it's there, shaping the mood of everything around you. That's the feeling I get from this piece: it has a mood and a very definite mood, but it's more like a whisper rather than a statement, if that makes sense. The colors are relaxing: they are mostly cool colors because of the background, but then the wine and the bottle are both so vivid, and the grapes are rich. I like this a lot.

Ok, I'm doing one more today---I lied! I love Chip's comment, and the feel of moonlight---I didn't think of moonlight when I first saw this, but it does have that mysterious feel to it. I really like the pastel texture, I love the grainy feel, and the way you mix surface hues---your blue background with that tarnished gold running through it; the table with spots of grays and beiges and blacks and some whites. It's subdued but very active. The grapes are darker than in the postworked version---I loved the grapes there---but here they feel more melancholy, and more like wine grapes rather than eating grapes. The white lines on the bottle are beautiful, as they are on the glass---which is the color-highlight of the piece (the one with most hue and light in it). And the wine's deep-red is the most saturated hue in the piece, I think. It's a very sweet climax because it's on one side, and it balances out the larger bottle, table and wall. Also, the angle of the table keeps the piece "opening up" as we go from left to right---a good choice, considering you made it up (it wasn't from real life). I like it all---the mood, the subdued feeling, your way with chalks, etc. And as chip says, the colors are relaxing and this has a wonderful sense of raw moonlight , the kind you'd see when you're just sitting and not really paying attention...It's a whole lot better than you think, believe me Helle, and I hope you keep doing these, large and small, and let the pieces speak what they want to, through you. I also like your dark border here, it makes it feel 'intimate'. Loving work, Helle, I really like this drawing!