GoVenture

An interesting challenge is going on between 2 different artists/bloggers (Kal & Elise) this week where they both create something new each day depending on a theme or word/s they have chosen. Other people have been invited to join along, so with yesterday's theme being Green + Dizzy, I submitted a photograph on Flickr I played around with a little in photoshop, bumping up the greens.

Today's theme is Not My Type, which made me think of this painting I did a couple of years ago:



Though they share similar coloring, I believe they both agree they're not each other's type...

Tomorrow? The word is Pocket---the wheels are turning already...

Poppy #1

May 20th the local plein air group headed to Shreiner's Iris Gardens for a morning of painting. They have an outstanding display of flowers---Iris of course, but many, many others too! Lupines, peonies, & my personal favorites: dinner plate sized poppies! After scouting out the best poppies I settled in to paint one in particular. I have my own poppy plant I purchased from Shreiner's several years ago and it was blooming gloriously in our backyard these past 2 weeks also. Since I had so much fun painting their poppy I decided while ours was blooming I'd try to capture some more, resulting in 3 more 12x12" almost finished poppies! I knew I had to work quick since the bloom time was short, and sure enough once the temps rose into the 80's they immediately began to show signs of wear & tear. Photographs just don't do justice to the amazing reds of these particular poppies---they're always a bit too pink & not as rich as the poppies are in real life. Even major photoshopping can't capture the intense color! That was my painting goal---to put that red on canvas. It was really a fun challenge! Here's the first one I painted from Shreiner's poppy: I'll post the other 3 in the next few days.

This was my quick sketch on site at Shreiner's - to see any image closer you can right click & open in another window or tab.


Here's the first layer of pastel:


And the final painting:

Different Perspective

So, I hinted at something different in the below post, and this is what I painted for a show at New Morning Bakery. One of my favorite things they serve is their chocolate cream cheese cupcakes. They threw out a call for artwork to help celebrate their being in business over 25 years, so one afternoon in January, I took a stroll downtown, purchased a cupcake to go, then seeing an open booth, sat for a few minutes organizing some gallery paperwork. While there, I stealthily pulled out my new little olympus camera and shot 2 photos of my cupcake, snug in its to go bag.

Back home, I pulled out a canvas that I'd painted a mediocre landscaped on, sprayed it with an air compressor to blow off any loose pastel, then gave it a quick wash with water. (nice test to see how tough pva spray is on pastel, on canvas!) Then I sketched on my painting. Below is that initial drawing, turned sideways so you can see the previous landscape as it's still portrayed on that washed canvas.

It's a bit hard to see the blue pastel drawing lines on the canvas, but if you right click on the photo you can enlarge it in another window or tab, and see them better.

This next photo shows the painting with the first layer of soft pastel---this time you can kind of see what I'm painting, but a lot of the background is still showing through.
After spraying with pva, I painted another layer with soft pastel, and again sprayed the surface with diluted pva size. Here's a shot of the 2nd layer.

After more layers, time studying it, more painting, more time staring at it, more fiddling, I finished! (It's often a major accomplishment to decide one is truly finished...fiddling with a painting can be an on-going process!)

Close-up of the cupcake.

I enjoyed working on this painting a lot---playing with the colors, trying to stay loose, and letting the pastels create the texture I was hoping for. All in all, I was pretty happy with this one! What do you think? Any suggestions?

Oh, it's painted on 1 1/2" thick 16x20" primed canvas with a black acrylic painted edge. It's for sale, and if you'd like more information, please leave a comment or email me!

A new painting

This pastel painting was painted as a donation to our local Arts Center fundraiser February 28th. This event is called the Chocolate Fantasy---a dreamy evening full of chocolates, art, and music. My only complaint?! I'm just not a chocolate fan!! I know, I must be some kind of weird feminine aberration... but I just don't really like chocolate much! If I have to have chocolate I want it in the form of brownies, chocolate milk, chocolate cream cheese cupcakes* (see below!) and the occasional mocha, but that's about it for the chocolate fantasies of mine. Ok, chocolate rum cake is pretty tasty too, but a chocolate kiss? hershey bar? chocolate covered almonds? Nah, no thanks... Now if it was a popcorn fantasy? Chips & dip? I'd be all over that!! Luckily for me, since I do get 2 tickets to the event for my contribution, there is at least one table that has non-sweet treats available... What I'm really looking forward to, is seeing all the other donated artwork!

This first photo shows my preliminary drawing with pastel pencil on the prepared canvas:
Not much to it, is there? That's the joy of pastels---you build as you go!

Next we have the first layer of soft pastel, pretty much covering the drawing and the whole surface of the canvas.


I've sprayed it thoroughly with diluted pva size, and continued on with another layer of pastel.


And, here is the painting, all finished!

I'm calling it "Showers Likely"
It's on 12x12" canvas with a finished gallery edge.
Coming up---my 2nd painting, finished this month! Stay Tuned for something completely * different!

My new obsession...

I've been in search of a way to paint in pastels and then frame the finished painting without glass. Impossible usually because of how fragile pastel is on paper---just the slightest touch will brush away the pastel, smear the image, or rub out any texture you've created. Most pastels are framed under glass with a spacer between the painting and mat to allow any loose pastel dust to fall between the mat & spacer to avoid marring the face of the mat. Pain-in-the-butt framing, but a necessity with pastels. Because framing is one of my least favorite things to do (and it's darn expensive too having to use archival matting, acid free foam core, etc!) I've dreamed of finding a way to paint in pastel without all that framing fuss. After doing some extensive research, I went to work on Wednesday and tried a technique for the very first time that was suggested by another pastel artist (http://www.rockmouthart.com/art/content/glasslesspastels.html) whom was very generous with sharing her method. (Thank you again Tricia Messinger!)

As I sprayed the first layer of diluted PVA size onto my pastel, I was just a touch disappointed to see it melt the pigment and watch bits of it drip down the surface I'd prepared... Once I blew it dry tho, I was beginning to get excited---the color that seemed to melt while wet returned almost completely (tho a tad darker which she warned about). The drips added texture (ok, so I didn't really want texture right there, but that was ok---it was my first attempt and I knew this was essentially an experiment!) I have a hard time not producing a piece of artwork that isn't supposed to be immediately saleable upon finishing...so I don't often experiment like I should! Happily, I was able to continue working on the piece and with added layers of the size (and a more careful application to avoid dripping) and continued use of the blow dryer I was able to produce something in pastel that was truly "sealed"! It still looked like a pastel, it was still brilliant with color, but it was protected---WITHOUT GLASS!!!

I'm just a little EXCITED!! With an abundance of wood boards leftover from signs my husband has made, I have materials galore to draw from to create surfaces of all sizes for future pastel paintings---no more am I limited by what I can afford in framing materials---no more do I have to even use frames (the latest look in galleries seems to be wrapped canvases where the painting extends around the edges of the canvas or board) which means NO FRAME!

Here is the finished painting---I used the pastel I painted in Independence as my subject matter, so now I have one to keep and one to sell---tho this one is not quite finished---close tho.


This next photo shows the board I used as my surface---I puttied the edges and then used acrylic silicone to seal the edges which I'll probably just paint black now or use some simple wood molding painted black to frame the piece. I covered the surface I painted with 2 coats of Art Spectrum Colorfix Pastel Primer in black (http://www.cheapjoes.com/art-supplies/5643_art-spectrum-pastel-primer.asp) before I went to work with the pastels. Time to go finish this painting and start a new one---think I'll try something big next time...