Thursday, April 14, 2011

Just for practice, "Path to the Beach"

Pastel - 8" x 11"
In the last couple of days I watched two pastel demonstration videos by Deborah Secor. One was on Artists Network TV and one was on Deborah Secor's blog. The one on her blog was a demonstration using PanPastels for a landscape which was mostly clouds. She made it look so easy that I thought, " I could do that!" Ha!  Not so easy. It probably would have been a little easier if I had used the PanPastels, but I just used what I had in the way of soft pastels. Also, I used a pastel paper which didn't have a lot of tooth. For my reference I used a photo I had taken when we were in Florida that included some beautiful clouds. I changed it a little; the ocean was actually the opposite direction. I used to do pastels a lot but I'm a little out of practice. Next time I think I'll use a pastel board or something with more tooth because I do too much layering.    

Friday, April 8, 2011

Older Painting


I wanted to post something more cheerful than the last post, so I dug around in some of my older paintings and found this watercolor from 2006. The flowers were from my yard at that time.This is painted on Bristol vellum. I really like working on this surface, but you can't get it too wet. It's good for watercolor pencils too. I'm not sure what I'm going to paint next or in what medium. I have so many photos that give me ideas that I don't know where to start. I might just view some of my Artist's Network videos for a while and then decide.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Abby


Abby didn't make it. She passed away yesterday. She was a good buddy and will be greatly missed.