Meyer Lemon Still Life

Meyer Lemons (resting stage)
30 x 30

Still life has called to me again lately, as has a larger canvas.  Small canvases have the attraction of a speedy output and they allow me to experiment without feeling as though I've lost a lot of time and paint if they don't work out, but they aren't as interesting or challenging as a big surface.  The lessons I learn (and relearn) from these are rich.
This painting has undergone a lot of changes as I've tried to capture the backlit, autumn leaf influenced lighting.  The set up is against a north facing window, but the foliage in front of that window has heavily influenced the temperature of the light making it more warm than expected and creating quite cool shadows.  A lot of cloud cover has acted as a diffuser and created soft edges.
The inspiration for the piece was the intense orange of the meyer lemons.  For some reason, while I don't enjoy painting actual oranges, orange-coloured lemons are great subjects for me.  Probably it has to do with texture; the lemons have a smooth, gleaming surface that catches light beautifully.
At the moment, I'm calling this piece done-ish.  (so decisive!)
It has been on and off the easel often and my lemons have browned and shrivelled, but yesterday, the last piece fell into place.  That background at the top was a muted blue and quite dead and heavy, having been many other colours and values from dark to light over the past couple of weeks. Yesterday, I realized that changing the color to the greenish shadow color in the lemons was a better call, and it immediately put some much needed air into the piece, as well as increasing the color harmony.
But I won't call it done for sure until I've lived with it for a good while, and it won't leave the studio till I'm certain.  The revisiting is the fun part and the most challenging.
Happy painting!