Stepping Out

Stepping Out (8x10, soft pastel)

Did this painting today. I did the pencil sketch for this months ago. The photo it was done from was taken almost a year ago. I'm very lucky in that I have some neighbours with a mixture of farm animals that allow me to go up and take photos of the animals. The idea for this painting has been with me for a loooooong time and finally today I decided to do the painting.

When I looked at the sketch I realised that if I did the composition correctly it could look almost as if this chicken were about to step right out of the picture.

It is done on red paper and I like the way in some places that red comes through the painting and the underpainting to give a bit of a glow to the entire piece.

I feel so risque using coloured paper! Until yesterday I had only painted on black paper.

This would have gone better and easier if I had chosen the same colour to underpaint the chicken's right side as I had for the deepest parts of the barn behind it. I chose a lighter colour and had to fight with things a bit to get as dark as I wanted it to be.

But I'm happy with how it turned out and just ordered a bunch more coloured Mi Tentes papers to try. I feel bad for the stash of black that I have. It may be hanging around twiddling it's thumbs for awhile now...

Halleluja!!!

Knee Deep (8x10, soft pastel)

This was a halleluja moment for me...

I have read and read about underpainting as a technique for painting with soft pastels and have never tried it. Alchohol - ethanol - is supposed to work. I searched for some but I was out of that. Hopefully no first aid will be needed in our house until I get some more. I remembered reading somewhere in the last week that you could use mineral spirits. I had some of those and so I dug them out and used my rubber silicone brush thingies from the art supply store.

I laid down my first layer of pastel on an orange (!!!) paper and then spread the mineral spirits with the silicone "brushes".

I just went from there with this painting.

These dairy cows were grazing one day as I was driving by just near sunset and I had to stop and take a picture. The idea for this painting has been in my head for a long time and I'm glad to finally have put it on paper.

Underpainting is definitely in my future!

The Lookout

The Lookout (5x7, soft pastel)

This is the second painting I did for the February Virtual Paintout hosted by Bill Guffey. This month he took us too Romania. There were many things that caught my eye but this horse and the valley below him grabbed my attention.

It was less of a struggle than my first painting.

The horse sort of looks like a horse. At least My Tool Man knew that it was a horse...

Round 3

Romanian Valley (5x7 soft pastel)

This painting was done for the February Virtual Paintout in Romania.

I was going to say that the pastels and paper had a TKO on me... but then I changed my mind.

This is the third time I painted this and I can see improvements in this last version and I learned some things. There are some problems with the trees but...

Hello!

Hello! (5x5 soft Pastel)

This little fellow showed up in my window yesterday. He was peering in my front room window at me and so I decided to take his photo and do a painting of him.

This little painting went through 3 incarnations tonight. The first one is on the back of the final version. I wasn't happy with it. So I did the one below. I just took the fat side of some pastels and drew very spontaneously and made big marks, trying to leave out all the minute detail. It loosened me up and I started over. The result was Hello!

Robin Sketch - Starbucks sketch #2

This little robin sketch is the second sketch I've done from photos I have on my ipod. I want to try and do something everyday if I can and these little sketches are at least a way to keep up my practice of drawing.

Sketch of Three Ladies - Starbucks sketch #1

This is a sketch I did at Starbucks today. I seem to have accidentally joined a little group that vaguely reminds me of Cheers! only it's located in Starbucks! The people are incredibly funny and have been gracious enough to allow me to join in. I don't say much. I mostly just listen to all the conversation and sketch something off of my ipod. Today I did these three sheep. I hope eventually to turn it into a pastel painting.

We'll see I guess.

Gentle Giant

Gentle Giant (5x5 soft pastel)

This was done from a photo I took of an elephant in Singapore.

On A Street In The Town

On A Street In The Town (7x7 soft pastel)

This is a second painting I did for the January Virtual Paintout hosted by Bill Guffey. This month he sent us all to Boston, Mass.

I just watched the movie The Town a couple of days ago so I went to The Town, Charlestown, in Boston and was blown away by the houses there. The architecture is so simple and old fashioned and the colours of the houses were delightful.

I chose this house in Charlestown as my subject. What first caught my eye was the blue colour of the house and the bright yellow flowers in the window boxes. And the flowers on the steps were such a sweet touch. The way the light played in the stoop and along the siding of the house and on the sidewalk clinched it for me. This was the scene I wanted to paint.

I struggle with the city scapes in the Virtual Paintout. I struggle with landscapes too. I want to include too much it seems. The odd angles of the streets themselves bother me as well as the inability to get back and see the entire buidling. Which isn't how you see in real life anyways but I realised that this was my problem and I needed to learn to choose what I was going to paint more critically. To think more critically about my composition.

What got me going on this composition was an article in The Pastel Journal about James Kimak who loves to paint scenes of New York. He embraces the streets and odd angles and in some of his paintings he focuses on just one door and step or only a part of a building. It was like a light went off for me.

I went back and found my chosen address and drew a line drawing sketch of it being very cognisant of where I wanted the edges of the painting to be.

Then I just painted! I focused on trying to keep it simple and stepping back to look at what I'd done so I didn't overwork it, trying to get the lights and darks right. I wish it was a bit lighter between the two houses but...

I've also been trying to focus on having crisp edges in the focal area and being a bit freer and looser with the edges in the rest of the painting. That is the trick with working from a photo... everything is in sharp focus most of the time and it means you lose depth and if you paint everything with that much detail it seems to look wrong. I want to paint painterly and not photrealistically.

I have been paying attention lately to what makes depth when I look at things and that slightly out of focus look of everything except what is the center of your attention makes the world 3D. For me anyways. There was an excellent article/demo in the month's issue of American Drawing that really brings that out. So I have been trying to focus on painting that way as well. I hope I managed that with this paining and the one I did before it.

Autunm Lake Near Boston

Autumn Lake Near Boston(9x7 soft pastel)

This was done for the January Virtual Paintout hosted by Bill Guffey. This month he chose to send us to Boston and the surrounding areas. Thanks for another great challenge Bill!

I chose this location for my painting, a lake on Forest Grove near Boston. The fall colours and light and reflections caught my eye.

I am not a landscape painter but want to try and get better at this type of painting and so I am trying to practice. This is version 2. The colours are richer in real life and it looks better if you stand back from it at least 5 feet. The black squares are the texture of the mi tentes paper.

Hidden By Gortglas Lough

Hidden By Gortglas Lough (5x5 pen and graphitint pencil)

I finally was able to do something for the Virtual Paintout hosted by Bill Guffney. This month Bill has sent us to County Clare in Ireland. It was really wonderful to walk around this area of Ireland. But frustrating in a way because I was looking for sheep and never did see any. I saw some cattle but... I didn't want to paint those, or the horses I saw. I did find a border collie but the dog was from Galway as were most of the cattle and horses so they were out as subjects.

On a whim I plopped myself down on a road by Gortglas Lough and saw this. I was so happy and surprised! I took one step to the right and turned back to the left and found the view I wanted to use. And from there it was pretty easy. I did a sketch and then inked it with a micron pen. I decided that I wanted colour and used my graphitint pencils washed with water to add the tinted colour.

I'm happy with the results and was even happier when I showed it to a friend who immediately said, "It's a canoe!"

If only I was there and could find that canoe and go for a paddle in the lovely Irish sunshine.

Fleabitten Gray (11x14 graphite pencil) sold

Portrait of a horse in graphite pencil.