New Make-It-Take-It

I had to come up with a make-it-take-it for the conference in Maine at the end of June. This is a little pastel piece done on Mi-Teintes paper. The background is softened with denatured alcohol and then the purple cone flowers are painted over the top. The piece is about 6x9. It certainly isn't a fancy piece, but will frame up nicely and there is a good bit of learning to be gained from it.

Not much to show right now

As we are getting ready to pack up to move, there is not much time to work on art. Much of my time is spent sorting, pitching, and dividing into "store" or "move" stacks for packing. Today three friends came to help sort through my studio. I am donating a lot of supplies and surfaces to the decorative painting club to use as door prizes for retreat or basket luncheon, large raffle items to be painted for retreat, and other club uses. Even after we filled up two vehicles, there is still a lot of stuff left behind. I think there will be a porch sale for art supplies. I am going to get down to materials I will actually use--colored pencils, pastels, and appropriate tools and papers. I will only keep a small amount of acrylic paint and brushes and a very small supply of watercolors--just in case. We had a nice visit, worked hard, and had a good time. Everyone was very tired at the end of the day.

Turtle Progressing

Worked onthe turtle a bit more this week. He is almost finished. One more session and I think we will be able to call him done. He still needs work on his shell and then adjusting values. In this photo, you can see the reference photo in the corner.

Current Project

I am working on a turtle with my student. She took the photo in Florida on a very bright sunny day. The turtle is sitting on a rock in shallow water with a reflection that is absolutely exquisite. Last week we blocked in the turtle. This week we worked on the reflection and the rock. He is coming along nicely, but there is still a lot to do. He is about 8x10 in pastel on Art Spectrum Colorfix sanded paper.

Pastel Lesson

Today I went to see my teacher and start on a new project. I am doing a pastel painting of Miss Windy, my Lakeland Terrier. This is a big challenge. The idea of starting with pink and blue and purple--oh my! There is still lots of work to do. The likeness is there, but I am struggling a bit with how we get from this sort of psychedelic doggie to a very realistic finished work. This piece is bigger than life at 16x14 and is being done on gold velour paper.

An experiment

I recently had an opportunity to buy some velour paper from a different manufacturer. There were a variety of colors including a bright orange. I bought a number of sheets of the tan, blue, and gray that would most typically be used with pastels and I also got some dark brown and some orange. The orange intrigued me because I wondered if you could get the same sort of luminous results with pastel on orange paper that Robert Warren achieves with his orange canvases. I played with the orange paper a little. These eggs are certainly not finished, but I did enough to figure out that for some subjects, the orange paper just might work. More playing is required, though. The eggs are actually more colorful than they appear in the photo. My scanner picked up a lot of the orange undertone and ignored the blues to a large extent. Watch for more.

Country Barn

I don't usually do landscapes. They don't flow out of my hand easily and, while I appreciate them, they are not my favorite subjects. That said, sometimes it is important to stretch yourself. Today, I stretched. This barn is done in pastel on 8x10 velour paper.