Thursday's Effort

I am sticking to my plan of a painting a day. I am giving myself 1-2 hours in the morning to work on and complete a small painting. Here is today's painting. It is called "Gardening". It is pastel on 5x7 grey pastel board.

Painting for today

I have decided to try to make time to do a small painting every day. Today I got out the pastels once again and another 5x7 pastel board. This little piece is sketched from a set-up of a little Longaberger basket filled with small artificial pears and apples. For the background, I applied several colors and then used a watercolor brush and denatured alcohol to blend them together. Notice the left-hand light source. This is a challenge for me as I am so completely right dominant!

Today's Painting

I spent a little time after my student left this morning playing with my pastels. I had a 5x7 Pastel Board that I wanted to try out. This product is made by Ampersand. It has a sanded (textured) surface and comes in grey, sand or white. I used the sand colored surface for this piece.

Pastel Sketch

This is a small experimental version of what will ultimately be a much larger piece. It is done on Mi-Teintes paper with soft pastels and is about 9x12. The final version of the piece will be approximately 16x28 to fit in a very large frame. It is time to get it up on my easel and start working on it.

Busy Christmas Season

I have been very busy since Thanksgiving with orders for pet portraits. They are completed now and I will be delivering the last of them soon. Most of them were done in colored pencil, however, this one is in pastel. This little guy was sitting in front of a fan and it is his "Mom's" favorite photo.

Christmas Tree that Celebrates the Arts

Each year there is a Christmas Tree display in the lobby of the Barrow Theater in downtown Franklin, PA. The trees are decorated by various civic organizations, clubs, schools, and individuals in the area. I have had the privilege of setting up and decorating the tree for the Franklin Fine Arts Council. If you look carefully at the photo of the tree, you will see that it is a celebration of all of the arts. There is an old metal clarinet and sheet music to represent musical arts, a number of small paintings and paint brushes to represent visual arts, and a pair of ballet slippers to represent dance and theater arts. The tree topper is a wooden palette with a big bow. Right below the palette is a miniature painting of the Venango County Courthouse tower with fireworks in the night sky to celebrate Franklin's annual light-up night that opens the Christmas season.

Gingerbread Man

Last week my friend and I spent a day painting wooden gingerbread man plates. These plates can be used in a variety of ways. We have included a glass dish as a liner. This way, you can use the plate as a candy dish, cookie server, candle plate. With the glass liner the plate itself is completely protected.