California Poppy and Cats from Istanbul

 California Poppy

pastel pencil on paper

I started out today's pastel pencil sketches from one of my own photos, an early one from the clinic garden. I just wanted something bright that wouldn't fill the entire page on an 8 1/2" x 11" sketchbook. All of these are on one page from that simple sketchbook. I may actually fill it with pastel sketching.

 Gray Cat from Istanbul

pastel pencil on paper

photo reference by jlloren on WetCanvas.com

Every week there's a Weekend Drawing Event when a member posts sixteen photo references, often from trips they've taken abroad. This time the host went to Istanbul, so I may be back with some skylines with mosques and other architecture sketches tomorrow. I just had to start with the cats though!

Tabby Cat from Istanbul

Pastel pencil on paper

Photo reference by jlloren from WetCanvas.com

This little tabby was so sweet in her expression. I like how both of them turned out. Love the pose on the gray one and the markings on the tabby, subtly brown and blue-gray on the same cat.

30 Paintings in 30 Days Done

Collage of all 30 paintings in 30 days. Some are little sketches, others full layered pastel paintings on various surfaces, various mediums, but I did it! Thought it would be fun to share the collage here too, since I did it.

PicMonkey.com is a good photo editor online. It took me a little while to figure out how to make a collage but once I got it I got it. That was fun.

Now that I've done it, I'll continue daily art Health Permitting. Enjoy!

Day 30 Ari Cat from Life

Ari Cat from Life

7" square pastels on Stillman & Birn Beta journal

Fini! The very last painting for my 30 paintings in 30 days challenge. I thought I'd do something square, bold and colorful. Instead I did something square, soft, tonal and muted. My cat sat in that pose for all of about five or ten seconds. It's usually a prelude to his laying down. I stared at him for the entire time and then sketched fast in charcoal when he moved. So there he is! Fluffy tail and all. I loved what he did with his tail, that little J shape on the ground thing is so cool.

Yeah, well, I love my cat. The carpet really is a vaguely pinkish neutral. The walls allegedly white are faded and stained from years since they were painted, the light in here is yellowish and the door does have those panels on it. He wasn't sitting by the door but he often does, so I simplified the background by not putting in my walker and computer cords and piles of art supplies on the floor where he'd really been sitting. I wanted the wall behind him for definition. Easy matter to look over at the corner by the door for that too.

I will be doing two more pieces today, at least sketches, because I got tagged on Facebook for 3 artworks a day for 5 days challenge by Tammy Gustafson-Vanderbur. I doubted I could manage three a day that long, but she and Dani Day both pointed out I could post older art if I wanted to. So there's a backup plan.

Me, I'm actually taking the challenge to new pieces so that these next five days I do more sketching. I consider it counts even if they are all on the same page. My cat will feature strongly in them, I'm sure.

Well, here's the other two for today, in order!

Pear Study, 6" square pastel on paper

I did this one in the full Colourist style on rough brown sketch paper, loved the way it came out. Played with colors in the background too, shading both hue and value from left to right, top to bottom.

Then after finishing that one, I decided what the heck. I'll do one with a gold background. I love those Metallic Pan Pastels, why not actually set off a colorful subject with them?

Orange On Gold

6" square pastels and Pan Pastels on brown rough paper.

This one I used the Terry Ludwig Sunset set of 14 and also the 14 Best Loved Basics since I needed some browns and darks and other hues to go with the pure bright yellows, oranges and reds. I came very close to the true colors of this bright orange that way, it is searing and gorgeous!

I ate both pears, the little green one from the previous Three Fruits painting and the big green one from today. They were great. Tasted even better for having been painted first!

Day 29 Rainbow Lorikeet

Rainbow Lorikeet 6" square

Rembrandt pastels on Uart 400 sanded pastel paper

Photo reference from WetCanvas.com Reference Image Library by RubyRedDog2, This bird was one of two photographed in a zoo but I was familiar with Rainbow Lorikeets from some photos years ago by a friend in Australia. I loved those birds. They are insanely colored and very friendly, even wild ones become semi-tame when fed as she used to feed them corn off her back porch. An entire wild flock of them came out for her when she brought them food. Some birds are just sociable like that.

I've seen one photo of an Australian bloke with about nine or ten of them perching on him all friendly, they're really good natured and sweet as your normal little pet budgerigars. I had a budgie as a kid but the Rainbow Lorikeets are even brighter. The little green budgies are almost camouflaged in a tropical forest but these flying jewels are easy to see by any creature that likes fruits and flowers. Gorgeous birds. Can't keep a bird now because my cat is afraid of birds, but I do have some fond memories.

Ari got beaten up by a sparrow when he was only two years old. He didn't realize he was a natural predator to sparrows. The hysterical sparrow did, it landed right in front of him on a shelf in the closet without seeing him. Looked up, spazzed out and flew right up at him beating his poor nose with its wings in dire peril for its life. Ari kept leaning back farther and farther, eyes wide with terror vaguely waving a paw at this mad homicidal flying thing, then made himself all round and fluffed up when it gained enough altitude to bolt out of there.

My daughter, whose cat skills far outstrip my poor indoor cat's, caught the sparrow gently with a scarf and brought it to the open kitchen window to let it out. Poor Ari went off bird watching for months, but finally came to understand that the dangerous creatures can't get through a solid window. So he likes bird watching again but will not go near one without a barrier!

He'll catch mice, but birds are right out of it. None of them are food anyway, food comes in crunchy pellets in bags and I bring it to him. He likes proper cat food, city cats' food, the good low-grain kind. Even wet food is too close to human food for his tastes. As an urban cat with a job taking care of his human, he expects urban services like food processing and the delivery of choice morsels in shiny bags. Gets excited on new-bag day and knows who it's for, but hunting for himself is not something he's ever considered. He's a well paid professional therapy cat and that's how he likes it. Weather doesn't appeal to him either. Climate control and food delivery is a cat's natural habitat, with cushions and things to claw and catnip carrots.

Did a second sketch for the day using Pan Pastels Colorless Blender on most of the page under the sky to see if it'd lighten the colors I put over it. It did beautifully, I had to layer a couple more times to get the darks in. The bottom where the land is didn't get that treatment for comparison.

Storm Sketch, pan pastels on paper

8 1/2" x 11"

The colorless blender is another useful tool. I'm glad it was included in my set of mediums, now that I know what I can do with it. What it didn't do was lighten it right off the sponge if I dabbed in the medium then the color. It will spread out color more than just letting it wear off the sponge and putting it under an area will dilute color going into it to make a soft blended effect.

California Hillside Day 28 of 30 in 30 Challenge

California Hillside

8 1/2" x 6" or so, WN watercolor marker on paper

Did another painting in Winsor & Newton Watercolour Markers, this time from a photo I took on my way to the clinic a few weeks ago. Got an interesting tree and a ridge where I changed the shape for esthetic reasons, some bushes and bare trees in the distance. Just fooling around with skies and landscapes, this time in an 8 1/2" x 11" Stillman & Birn Beta journal - rough heavy white watercolor paper that I love for pastels as well as wet mediums. The small one is entirely dedicated to pastels, this one's going to be water mediums or whatever comes to hand. 

Earlier this morning I did a cat sketch or two in my pocket Moleskine, finishing up a two page spread of sketches including figures as well as cats. Figures mostly from imagination, one or two from a poses book I bought.

The month is almost over, but thanks to the 30 in 30 challenge, I'm more or less back to Daily Painting and Sketching. If not a full on painting, at least a sketch! Might be more later or not as I'm going out to the clinic.

Followed up with another sketch under the landscape, this time a life sketch of a big fern out at the clinic garden.

Fern life sketch

Winsor & Newton watercolour markers

Yeah, it is sort of flat on the top like that, oddly enough. It just folds over past a certain point. It's big, about my height and the base very wide. A beautiful reminder of the gentle climate I live in now.

Day 27 Heavy Metal Pear

Heavy Metal Pear 6" square

Henri Roche' pastels on Uart 400 sanded paper

No photo reference for this, only the weird shaped little green pear that already got featured in Three Fruits sitting on a black surface that I jazzed up with colors because I could. It wound up having an abstract look and a strong triad color harmony, odd because I never do triad color harmony but this time I like it. The pear really shines. I meant it to look matte rather than shiny, using metallic pastels was a way to give it a particular look that worked well. 

Of course being metallic it also reflects whatever's in front of it. This time I was wearing black so I didn't get that pinkish look on the silver like on Silver Fish. Red or orange shirts do strange things with metallic colors! Or even white, it's a lot of fun for me to wear that orange shirt and come close to a white on white composition in cold daylight where all the shadows are a clear violet cast blue. Ideas for another time.

I'm happy with today's painting and happier still that the 30 in 30 Challenge has helped me get back into daily painting. I might be using watercolour markers for half of them but I'm also sketching more too and sometimes the daily painting isn't the only thing I do in a day. Much thanks to Leslie Saeta for the challenge!

I'll be trying to keep on with daily art during February, weather permitting.

Holiday Ornaments day 26 for 30 in 30 Challenge

Holiday Ornaments

6" square

Pastels on paper

Had a little trouble with the photo on this one, the silver ornament came through pinkish when I got the gold to look right and I don't think the metallic effects show very well. The ornaments are in metallic Henri Roche' pastels while the green velvet backdrop is in Rembrandt and Unison pastels. 

Another page in my pastel journal and another experiment with Roche' metallic pastels. I'll be reviewing these soon, want one more experiment on sanded pastel paper before I post about them.