plein air field study -- oil on canvas 12x12"

I believe this is what "they" call a cheese pumpkin. Maybe because of the color; maybe because it's about the size of a wheel of cheese. We had a sunny day last week and instead of cleaning my studio (!), I set this pumpkin in the grass by the studio and painted it. Besides the shape of the shadows changing, the colors also seemed to change! Or maybe I was going cross-eyed from looking at it so long? A lot of mysterious colors in this one! Finally at the end I mixed some violet tones and they really helped make it come alive. Who'a thunk it?