Going West

More fun with pastels! I'm enjoying this experiment. This time I "fixed" the underpainting with turpenoid, a little risky on a light wt. drawing paper. It was important to let the turpenoid dry completely before moving on. I tried a few of my new Nupastel brand, and I really like them. Maybe a large set for my birthday? I need a better way to store all my pastels, looks like a job for yard-saling.

Now that the weather is getting nicer I need to pack up a few things to do some plein aire pastel painting. I found a painter's tripod stool at a yard sale, it needs to see some action!

Model Lying

Yesterday four of us met at Michelle's house to draw from this live model. He is one of the best, interesting poses. I used smaller paper than usual, 14x17", so made the composition close in to the subject, which is so much more satisfying to do. Also, played with mixing compressed charcoal with charcoal pencil for hatching and detail work, and used pencil eraser for hatching as well.

Oct. First Friday

This should be a really good show! I'm planning to do gesture sketches for donations to the St. Margaret's Hospital Guild. Come one and all!

Approaching Glacier

Started this pastel painting today on a large sheet of drawing paper. It started as a pen and ink sketch done 2 years ago while in the car driving to Glacier National Park. The landscape through Montana and Wyoming was awesome! Talk about your wide open spaces, something a city girl like me doesn't see very often. The mountains really are purple!

Central Park

My newest pastel work is from a photograph I took last year while visiting NYC. It's a view from Central Park. Although the buildings in the background are an important piece of the compostion, I didn't want them to be the focus, so made them very sketchy. It was a bright day, and the front of the buildings were very light against a gray-blue sky. This is why I used a gray-blue sanded paper. It's small, 9 x 12 inches, so I used a lot of hard pastels that I had more control over.

Gallery Representation!

For the first time ever! I am now going to be represented by a gallery! This is something I've always thought would mean that I've "made it" in the art world, I guess I have! Kathleen O'Niel-Stevens is the owner of this new gallery in Carmel's Arts and Design district. Please stop in to see my art, and that of a whole lot of terrific artists. Her Grand Opening is coming up, so should be a lot of fun!

More Practise with Pastels and Charcoal

Yesterday was somewhat productive. It's always a good day whe I get to draw from a model! The bottom image was done in open figure, and was done over 3 20 minute sessions. The first 20 minutes was spent on the body, the 2nd session was spent on the face. At the break after that I realized the face looked too small for the body/head. Thank goodness for fellow artists who pointed out that the only thing wrong was the placement of the eyes. In the 3rd 20 minute session I simply moved the eyes and finished off the hair and top of the head. I'm pleased with the result.

The top image is done in pastels, 20 x 16. I tried a landscape in pastels for the first time. This is done from a photograph taken at Shades State Park years ago. It took 2 days to complete. I'm pleased with this as a first attempt, it is on charcoal paper, which I haven't used much, and feels different than the drawing paper I usually use. With this I did much less blending with fingers, only a little in the clouds. With this paper more of the ground shows through. I will look for orange charcoal paper to use for landscapes, but not too confident of finding any.