"The Barrier"

I played with my pastels recently and used a homemade surface with last weekend which was Art Spectrum pastel primer on Gatorboard.  I haven't found the best way to cut the gatorboard though.  It's more heavy duty than regular foam board.

Figurative Experiment

I'm getting ready to take a figure drawing class on Saturdays, so I thought I would try my hand at a figure in pastels. I used the same technique that I used in Pynki, the elephant painting I did awhile back. The model is from website that provides virtual models called posespace.

 

 

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The Feather King

Well, it has been more than a week since I've painted anything, and my first attempt was a seascape with waves and cliffs and the whole shebang. Didn't work so I put it aside. I felt a little more comfortable with an animal today. Meet the Feather King. Male peacocks are so majestic, how can they not be called the feather king!

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Windy Calanque Journey

This may look familiar to you.  You haven't lost your mind.  Yes, you have seen it before.
I repainted the same scene for my Week 4 assignment in Karen Margulis' online class.
It's bigger this time around.
9x12
Pastel on Ampersand Pastelbord
We did a watercolor under painting.  I used blue watercolor underneath where the orange-ish cliff would be, and orange underneath where the blue water would be.  Fun exercise!

The new painting is immediately below (9x12), and the old painting (8x10) (sold) is underneath it.

Kissing Cousins

To me, it looks as though this "pear" of cousins want to kiss one another but fear the taboo.

Zig Zag

Here is another 5x7 study. I call him Zig Zag because of the dark mark above his wing. We saw this blue heron (I think) walking around Volendam in The Netherlands so I snapped his photo. He was so friendly and not even remotely afraid if people.

 

 

 

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Pynki on the Move - Week 3 assignment

For my assignment for Week 3 of Karen Margulis' class, I painted an animal.  This was a bit bigger than I am accustomed to painting.  I wanted to punch up the colors quite a notch, so I made sure the VALUES were correct regardless of the color.  That's why Pynki is pink (... and turquoise ... and green ... etc.)

He was fun.  He wasn't supposed to look like a baby elephant, but that's a flaw that I don't mind.  It was an adult elephant in the reference photo.

The name is made up, and I went with a "creative" spelling just for the fun of it.

Lavender of Gordes - Week Three - SOLD

I had a lot of "wipers" from my "dailies" this weekend that didn't come out the way I had hoped so I went back to something familiar.  I painted this in oils over Thanksgiving weekend, but took some liberties with both. In the pastel painting, I omitted the cypress trees.  In the oil painting, I kind of straitened out the curvature of the rows as shown in the original photo.

The photo, the oil and the pastel (in that order).  I'm sure this isn't the last you've seen of Lavender of Gordes!

Five Of A Kind - Karen Margulis' online class (week two)

I chose to paint small 5x7 studies of the same landscape:  (a) all cool colors, (b) all warm colors, (c) monochromatic, and (d) random colors.  I wasn't sure if I did the assignment correctly or not (hence my delay in posting), but my feedback was great, so here they are.

My favorite was the green one.

Dunes of Cape Cod - SOLD

Well this is from the second photo reference I've used that is a scene from Cape Cod.
Maybe I should pay it a visit one of these days.  This photo reference was provided by wetcanvas user Nicola Boerer.

I was a little nervous about this one - wasn't sure how the sand and seagrass was going to turn out.
I also switched to a different paper for this one.  Art Spectrum Colourfix Coated Paper.  The color was Terracotta which I thought would compliment the blue sky nicely and aid the color of the seagrass.

Sunny Reach -- SOLD

Here is another daily from Karen Margulis' online mentoring class.
I'm not posting all of them, by the way, because some of them are stinkers.
Photo reference is from user "thalweg" from wetcanvas.com, and it was quite lovely, so thank you "thalweg".

Marsh Exercise

This was my first weekly exercise for the mentoring program. I received terrific feedback from Karen. The horizon needs to be straightened out, but over all, I was happy with it. We used her photo reference and were provided with set by step instructions on her approach. First I did a four value sketch with markers, an under painting with (Nupastel spruce blue) with odorless mineral spirits, let dry and then the painting.

 

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Tiajuana Estuary - SOLD

There is an estuary near the California/Mexico border. I made some changes to the shapes that appear to be trees in the distance. They actually are rows of houses, but I didn't want to get too fussy with it since the assignment is to limit the painting time to 30-45 minutes.

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Lemon Fan - SOLD

Still having fun with still lifes.  I'm a big lemon fan.  Aren't you?

Maine Tidal Marsh

I've never been to Maine, but loved a photo (copyright free) I found on wetcanvas.com.  Wetcanvas.com is an incredibly useful website where an artist may post their work, obtain Q&As as to their art ranging from sculpting to painting and a whole lot more.  Also, wetcanvas.com has a image reference section which includes (and certainly is not limited to) animals, still life subjects, street scenes, people, etc.  The great thing is that the images are copyright free and the owners of the images must accept that before posting them.  I used an image posted by user "Colin" who posted an awesome photo of a tidal marsh and river in Maine.  I painted it this morning and am still using that fun app "Frame Builder".

Painting:

Painting in Frame Builder frame:

Frame Builder

Today I discovered an awesome app called Frame Builder. After seeing eBay artists display their art for sale in a virtual frame, I went on a quest to find a way to do the same. It's a great tool that allows potential buyers (and the artist selling his/her art) to visualize their potential sale in a frame or even just a mat. You can easily change the size or color of the frame or mat just by dragging a slider bar. You can even change the size of the bevel on the mat!

Take this painting I did over the weekend. I like the way it looked in person and even with a simple white mat over it, but the image alone? Not so much.

Enter Frame Builder, et voilà! Much better!

A couple of other examples:

 

Additionally, you can save "templates" so that you don't have to start from scratch. Coolio!

 

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