Drifter

One of the neat things about working with pastels, especially on sanded paper that takes lots of layers, is that I can work and work and work. One of the difficult things about working with pastels is that there's no obvious stopping point. I've been working on this painting for days and days. The water was hard enough to get like water, but the leaf was even harder. I must have wiped off and redone the leaf eight or ten times. I still think it looks like a flower, but I've decided to put the glassine over this for storage and tape it down so I don't keep looking and twiddling and smearing pastel all over my hands and clothes. I have no idea where I took the photo of the water; the leaf was done with a couple of real maple leaves that escaped the raking. As usual, this will look better if you click on the picture for the larger and brighter version.

"Oops"

Browsing through some photos the other day, I was struck with the composition of this. Never mind that it's the bumper of my son's truck after an inattentive driver plowed into it, or that I was driving, or that he was on his honeymoon. No damage to me but the truck was totaled. It's all watercolor and a big change from the autumn woods I've been painting . . . and painting . . . and painting.

Amari under a white blanket

I think this pastel is finished. Amari is our female American Eskimo dog and loves to be under things. I managed to snap a photo some time ago. I love the way the blanket swirls around her. As always, it will look better if you click on the photo here to see the larger, and brighter, version.

color wheel

I've been asked to teach a watercolor class in the winter term at our local art center. I'm a bit adamant about learning to mix colors, maybe because I don't want to spend the money on heaps of tubes of different colors. So yesterday I worked on creating a color wheel using only three colors: rose, cobalt blue and yellow. I used the complementary color (the color opposite on the color wheel) for the shadows on and of the balls. I may do this again, varying the red, blue and yellow, to see which combination I like best.

Dune Fence

We spent last week at the New Jersey shore with friends. For four days we watched 2 nor'easters pounding at the wonderful, huge windows at the place we were staying. We could see lots of huge waves in the distance. There were a couple of nice days when I got out to walk . . . with my camera, of course. Yesterday in my studio group I painted this watercolor from one of my photos.

Here's a photo from the house and my painting:

More autumn in the woods

Back to pastels again. It's easier to carry watercolor supplies to the art center for our Tuesday painting group and easier not to put all the pastels away at home for any other painting, so I may just do watercolors on Tuesdays. Today we had our small painting group here. As I was looking for reference photos, I came upon this one and knew immediately that's what I wanted to paint. It was the purple in the foreground that drew me, and all those red leaves. It wasn't clear in the photo, but I must have been standing on a bridge spanning a creek because it sure looks like water in the left foreground. As usual, any of these have better color if you click on the picture to get the larger size.

water and rocks

I went back to watercolor today, to paint for a project on rocks and woods for the online watercolor group I help moderate. It was fun and I'm reasonably happy with the painting which is a combination of a photograph I took in Scotland several years ago (the top), and a creek mostly from my head. I like rocks and water almost as much as I love woods and have painted them enough that I don't need much of a reference. There are a couple of tweaks to be done but basically it's finished, I think.

more little pastels

I painted these last Thursday when our little painting group met at our house. I love being in the woods where the dogs can run free, without leashes, and I can walk the trails without holding leashes. I love the woods. And so I love to paint woods.

Red Leaves

This is a fairly small (for me) pastel, about 9" x 7". Am I finished? If not, why not? It's also the first thing I've done is a long while that I've not wanted to wash off immediately. We're trying to eliminate stuff in the house and that's been using my energy.

Woodland Stream

After that mixed media workshop, I found myself looking at photos this morning with a much more keen eye for composition. I printed out a bunch about 1 1/2" x 2" so I would not be seduced by the details. I could feel that my touch with the pastels was different today, maybe lighter, putting them down more transparently. As a challenge, I kept my green pastels out of sight and mixed the greens with various blues and yellows. Right now, having just finished this, I'm really pleased with it. We'll see how it ages.

Mixed Media Workshop

I've just been to a 5-day, mixed media workshop at our local art center. It's something I've taken many times before and I always learn a lot. The last two workshops, I've finally felt that I am "getting" it. Anything that be painted, smeared, glued to paper or board is grist for the mill. Basically it's non-objective work which is fun but much harder for me because I have to dig deep and listen carefully for what to do next.

Here's a slideshow of everything I did, in the order it was done.

Long Beach Island

So many photos, so little time! I have no idea when I took this photo but the light on the fence just begged me to paint it yesterday. It's a good way to remember many wonderful weekends spent there with our group of Quaker women.

Woods' Light

I love the woods. We have a couple of places nearby that are township parks and are woods with trails. I take the dogs there sometimes because we can get away with dogs off-leash. Needless to say, they love the woods, too, and the creeks or streams therein and come home tired, wet, muddy and happy. (Fortunately they have the sort of fur that sheds the wet and mud when it dries.) Sometimes I go and just tramp and look. Sometimes I take my camera and come home with gazillions of photos. So I paint woods fairly often. This painting was done from a photo that I must have taken at a county park, because the road is paved. I chose it because of the light. Since it's pastel, and since it's still sitting on my painting table, I have made some minor changes since this photo was taken, but not so's anyone but me would notice.

Late Day Light - finished

You may have seen the work in process version here; now I think it's finished. I didn't do much, just some tweaking where folks suggested. It's probably much brighter in the larger version you get if you click on the picture.

Stuck with Pastels

A couple more pastels. The flower arrangement was brought to our painting group after the bridal shower for the daughter of one of our members. The background is the color of the Wallis paper. The garden, done on an underpainting of dark, dark green, is from a photo I took at a garden where we were painting last summer.