Dried Leaf in Pen and Watercolor

Dried Leaf in pen and watercolor

3" x 5" cold press watercolor paper.

Only three empty pages left in this little journal! It's cool coming to the end of one. I don't know what I'll do on the last pages but I love its thick paper that doesn't bleed through no matter what I do.

This morning I looked down and saw this leaf. It's old, most of them are just a reddish faded brown - but this one had deep violet-blue areas and patches, some in shadow and blued still more by reflected sky. I know sometimes they turn black as they degrade into soil, this was a stage in that process. So I had to draw and paint it, the unusual colors and sharp dark shadows grabbed me.

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!

Pears from Life

Pears from Life

Neocolor II artist crayons on large watercolor Moleskine

Today's painting is actually catching up for yesterday, unless I get in another sketch or something I'm still one day behind. I probably will though. This took me a while since I did the first layer lightly and washed it. The whole page curled up when I did and you can see that original wash in the background that I didn't color over because I liked it - a mix of black, Ultramarine and white layering.

I used the same light green artificial pear for all three views, rotating it to see it at different angles. It's not perfectly symmetrical and I also deliberately let it vary a bit in my rendering, not worrying if I made it a little fatter or shorter. I played with color on all three versions and pushed one way back by fading out the colors with white - which showed up more in the photo than the original. But color adjustments in photos are tricky at best, get one area looking true and some other area will be washed out or too dark or too blue or something.

It's one step more intense than the chalky looking thing in the photo, more like a solid Naples Yellow than a pale grayed beige. The shadows did do that double ring effect too. Values are about right, it just paled out because of what's probably gamut issues.

Oh wow! 200th post! Just noticed that! Yay, been at it a while with this blog. Onward!

Tree in Mist in Tombow markers

Tree in Mist, 8 1/2" x 11" 

Tombow dual tip pens on sketch paper

Another tree demo for my email sudent. This time showing how to pull some branches forward and push others back with color and value. There's a bit of mist but still enough directional light for distinct shadows in this, also I was describing how grass under trees really gets when it's not on a golf course. Patchy with lots of bare spots and mud puddles, little clumps and hummocks of plants rather than smooth flat color as if perfect bright green sod just got laid.

That sod will yellow in close shade too, especially after the trees leaf out.

So often we learn to draw in kindergarten but are doing so in specific grade school symbols - a brown stick with a green ball or blob on top, maybe forked with a ball on top. Stick figures. Horizon line based on the lines you write on - all the drawings lined up on the horizon line. 

Accurate drawing means letting go of these things and finding new ways to simplify the ridiculous amount of detail in the real things. You can't paint every blade of grass but you can get the mower stripes on the lawn and people can see that's a lawn.

Black Eyed Susans in soft pastel

Black Eyed Susans

9" x 12" pastel on paper

Good old workhorse Rembrandt pastels on Canson Mi-Tientes paper. This is my best Black Eyed Susans to date. These flowers confound me. I've done them many times and remember three frustrating oil paintings I did in Kansas where I got lost in background details but tilted all the flowers toward me. In my defense, the sun was at my back and they actually were all tilted toward the sun - but that doesn't really fly for artistic choices. They'd have been more interesting going in different directions and showing volume.

These three are more or less pointing in the same direction but at least they're at an angle giving them some depth!

Emu and Hollyhocks

Emu - 7" square Pentel Brush Pen and watercolor 

Hollyhocks

7" x 9" Color Conte on black Canson Touch sanded pastel paper

Two for today, the Emu was something I conceived yesterday but didn't sketch till this morning. Minor breakthrough with that Pentel Pocket Brush Pen, I didn't pencil it first. Reference by hugashrimp for the WetCanvas.com October Watermedia Challenge. Watercolor is my Daniel Smith palette. 

Hollyhocks was the October Pastel Spotlight challenge and I expect to do a third or fourth piece today. Will be going out to the clinic this afternoon and depending on how I feel, go for some plein air sketching or photos or both. That and I'm going to have a go at a cat gargoyle from imagination.

Day 21: Red Peonies

Red Peonies 

6" square, Sennelier oil pastels on watercolor journal

I finished and posted this yesterday on Leslie Saeta's 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge, but forgot to blog again here. So today may have a double post due to catching up!

I actually sketched this from a photo by Ural Jones on WetCanvas back on the 20th, but did the chrysanthemums faster since I knew this one would be some work and I wasn't sure what medium I'd use for it.

Sennelier oil pastels are the very softest. They are very nearly paint, with a texture similar to oil sticks. Blended them with a Derwent color shaper, which I happened to have handy. I also used a little odorless mineral spirits to dissolve the light green and yellow background elements for a smoother texture, saving the heaviest painterly textures for the flowers.

I think it's one of my better compositions, surely one of the more complex ones. I like the value pattern and the way the red-green color harmony breaks the mid-dark area dramatically into foreground flowers and background leaves. The colors pleased me and the whole painting came out better than I expected.

My first thought was to use gouache or watercolor for it, but I like this better. Toward the end I wasn't sure if it was too rough and textured. Then I stood back and pow, yeah, that was just the "under my nose" effect. You can't really tell about whether a painting works when you're focused on one small area right on top of it. The best test is to stand back. 

If standing back physically is too hard, as it sometimes is for me, takng a photo and looking at the thumbnail is a good way to get an overall view of the composition. When I saw this an inch across, it surprised me how well it hangs together. Definitely a step forward in composition!

Day 16: Pears, Plums and Clementine on Milk Glass

Pears, Plums and Clementine on Milk Glass

8 1/2" x 6 1/2"

Today I felt a good deal more ambitious and did this painting in several sessions with Caran d'Ache Neocolor II watersoluble crayons in my Stillman & Birn 8 1/2" x 11" hardbound journal. I love that heavy rough white paper, it has deep tooth and is very absorbent, works well with anything I throw at it.

Sketched this still life from life. A friend gave me five milk glass plates that are curved at the sides almost like a shallow bowl, I put one of them out for use. Then my home care guy went out and bought me fruit. He had an eye for the pretty ones, since he's also an artist! The big bright green pear, the two strange gold and reddish plums and a giant peach and beautiful nectarine now eaten were all a delight. I got photos of the nectarine. The peach was too irresistible.

Now that this is painted, I can find out what those plums taste like! The clementine and tiny brown pear came with my lunches from the food program I get, they were just right to add to the setup. 

I might even do another something today since it's not that late. I have the bottom of this page to do something else in water media. Might continue with those crayons or go back to the W&N markers or mess with watercolor pencils.

NC-II crayons are a lot like layering with colored penclls but softer and bolder. The light colors are translucent and somewhat opaque, though it helps to reserve pure whites. Texture is softer than the Cretacolor watersoluble oil pastels, still on the firm side compared to oil pastels. They wash out in a unique pigment rich lush color, not quite gouache as they have a little waxy shine and lack the matte effect of gouache. They can be used like it certainly! They rewet easily, going back into washed areas can create unintended lifting.

Square Fruit Still Life 30 in 30 Day 2

Pears and Orange

6" square pastel on paper

Second day of Leslie Saeta's 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge. I painted earlier tonight at 8pm and added more forms, this time in a different color harmony. Originally I had black lines but warmed them with a dark brown.

Once again I painted intuitively. I focused on the color harmony and went almost abstract working with the shapes. I worked from life again, my lunch included a real pear so I posed that with my light yellow green plastic pear and a very red-orange orange that caught some light on a section of the sphere.

The live pear was the same color as the plastic one. That didn't suit me so I used warm yellows in the same value pattern. This one started with Oyster Canson Mi-Tientes paper color - a light muted orange. So that called me to use orange, yellow and green with a red-orange form and then pink and lavender accents toward the back - moving around the spectrum toward blue but opposite the greens.

Hm... that's the full spectrum. Cool. It hasn't got that rainbow feel because the background accents are lighter and  less intense. I like the intense spectrum as a color harmony and may use that on another one, just go through the spectrum and sort the colors by values. But this pastels set has a blue violet and a magenta, not a strong mid violet.

So my palettes are also exploring the 24 color Cretacolor Pastels Carre' range as a limited palette in itself. I haven't used other pastels yet, set these supplies up as a physical convenience to be able to paint on bad days with field supplies.

At least one will be pen and colored pencils, this month's CP article. All will have a theme borrowed from the September Pastel Spotlight on WetCanvas.com - Line. That lets me explore any subject but keep it simplified, and I can explore different ways to use lines in painting. Yet use whatever medium fits for the day's energy, time and physical ability.

Two days in and I have hope of completing it this time. Wish me luck!

Colorful Peach

Colourful Peach

5 x 7" Pastel on Paper

This small painting took me two days and a number of experiments. I used Unison pastels on Canson Mi-Tientes and loved the way the smooth side kept taking layers. There are eight or nine layers on the more detailed areas of the peach. 

One of the hardest fruits to paint is a peach because of the soft pale fuzz over the whole thing. I added that last and sweated over every light stroke,  but succeeded in getting the haze that appeared mostly around the edges in real life. The photos I took enhanced that and paled the entire fruit, but I worked from life right to the end. I changed the colors of background and surface but not the angle.

I got a bit playful with the shadow and liked the way the colors played within it, so decided to leave that more whimsical than literal. The photo's a little off but in person it has some peacock iridescence that I loved seeing. I could have muted it more to get a more realistic effect but decided not to for artistic reasons. So it's one more step away from literal representation. I knew what I needed to do but that pool of color reminded me of completely different subjects and I liked it.

I can always experiment with these. The realist triumph here was the fuzzes, the shadow can be more transparent next time.

Colorful Tomato 2

Colorful Tomatoes 2

5" x 7" pastel on paper

Testing out my new Caran d'Ache pastels, the set of 15 has all the colors Charlotte Herczfeld used in Pastel Brands Matter. It's one of my favorite demo videos and one of the few that I ever did any version of the painting. Now this is my second go at it! My first, I drew a wide short beefsteak tomato and used softer pastels on Mi-Tientes.

Once again even my version came out bright and fun! Maybe next time I'll do this with a pear or orange or apple!

3 Fruits from Life day 25 30 in 30 Challenge

3 Fruits from Life

Terry Ludwig pastels on sanded paper

Testing the new Pastel Premier sanded paper, Medium grit, Italian Clay color. I mean to do another painting on the fine grit white before posting my review but I am very happy with this paper, especially this color and grit. Having a nice medium warm neutral to paint on let me play with value a lot and I loved the soft texture of the Ludwigs on it. Got plenty of layering to get subtle colors on the fruits and then still got bright highlights with only medium pressure on them.

This was fun even if I got dusty from head to toe, literally, had to give myself a bit of a sponge bath afterward! Sometimes pastels are messy. But oh the joy when they come out this bright and sing with color!

Day 19 Tropical Fish Dory

Tropical Fish Dory 9" x 12"

pastel on paper

photo reference by gnu on WetCanvas.com

Today's painting was done for the challenge "has bright colors and scales." I love tropical fish and love that particular blue-violet color, especially on a fish with yellow accents. Went searching in the Reference Image Library for one that color and passed many gorgeous reef references that unfortunately didn't have a screaming bright individual scaled animal standing out. Found this dory, laughed remembering Finding Nemo and painted it anyway.

Tomorrow we'll see a beautiful calico house cat continuing my 2015 Cat Study, also I'll be going out tomorrow evening to a reception for the show I'm in, Vantage Points at the Openhouse GBLT Senior Center. I have yet to see the whole show but sent my home care worker with three of my best, Conch, Colourful Lemons and Pacific Wave. It's going to be fun, we're getting a lecture from an art museum curator and I haven't attended anything like it in more than a decade. At last I get out of the house. This is going to rock.

If I get any good photos I'll post them tomorrow or next day. Wish me luck going out on something that isn't a medical appointment!