Orange Tree Autumn Colors

Orange Tree

5" x 7" Pastels on Paper

The photo reference for this small landscape was posted by DAK723 on WetCanvas.com for the November 2015 Pastel Spotlight challenge, theme Autumn Colors. He had lovely landscape references. I liked this tree with its dramatic lighting a lot, especially contrasting with others that hadn't turned and two saplings that already lost all their leaves.

Sketched it on light blue Canson Mi Tientes during November but I was a tad busy writing a trashy vampire novel for Nanowrimo. So I didn't actually start painting till this morning. I used my set of 15 Caran d'Ache soft pastels, lovely thick soft pastels with a very dense feeling like Art Spectrum ones. 

I'm very fond of them. It's a small set but I've gotten good results with them, the colors are very rich and well chosen. I'm not missing anything essential in that small palette. Though if I do expand them with any others it'll probably be Art Spectrum tints.

Had some very happy news - a rent credit from my landlord for all the months the elevator hasn't been working took the sting out of being nearly housebound with it. That came at just the right time to make the holidays possible and catch up on some needed staples. I'll be moving end of February, so getting a little ahead now will carry me through without starving or doing without essentials. That rocks!

I've even indulged with a dinosaurs coloring book for myself, for those days I'm not quite up to drawing but still want to play with color!

Pines and Fall Foliage

Pines and Sumac 8 1/2" x 11"

Tombow pens on sketchbook paper, memory 

Fall Foliage, 8 1/2" x 11" photo by BeeG on WetCanvas

Tombow pens on sketchbook paper

Yesterday was a good day, sketched in the morning with another lesson for my email student on pine structures skeleton and loose rendering, plus some red sumac from memory because I love it. I used the Muted Palette again for this one and liked how it came out. These full page sketches are bolder and a lot of fun.

Then in the evening wrote not one but two short chapters in my Nanowrimo novel, a vampire non-romance titled Forever Mine. Basically it's about a bad relationship and in the early chapters of their hazy limerence, some warning signs are already there. I'm about one day ahead already and that's great, the novel writing challenge is well in hand.

This morning I decided to work from a reference and liked the scattering of bright leaves in BeeG's Fall Foliage photo reference. Changed it to add more pines behind the tree and in the far distance, another demo. Love the way these big bright pages go fast and bold, it's not like doing little sketches in pencil that don't always show up on camera.

Today is Voting Day and tomorrow I've got my appointment, that's going to be a lot of exertion without enough rest in between. Plus this week the exterminator's supposed to be coming to fumigate and clear up the bug problem in my room. That'll take a lot of prep and everything on the shelves needs to get bagged and set aside, some serious disruption both in art and life. Not going to be fun and I'll very likely lose some days to stress and exhaustion in it. There's a limit to what home healht care people can do to help with my art supplies, some stuff I need to pack down myself and hope to get it done before they show up.

So wish me luck on all the overexertion. I may wind up sleeping like my cat when it's all done.

Autumn Trees Watercolor

Autumn Trees

Watercolor, 7" square

Playing with some watercolor foliage techniques, I wound up creating this scene from imagination with design changes along the way. The first version was too pale and rather annoying, so I extended the path all the way to the front cutting through some vegetation that crossed the front of the painting.

Then I decided to give some bright autumn foliage to the bare trees after I strengthened them. That jazzed up the scene and made it work. So this went from a very annoying fail into something I like well enough to post it. I can still do better and will, but this isn't too bad!