Invitation, WIP

Pastel on Wallis, 13x20

Second photo of work in progress. Looking now for values, consistency, and faithfulness to my original objective and motivation.

 

First photo of work in progress.  Railings were put in with calculated accuracy to insure the perspective.  Darkest values are hard pastel set with denatured alcohol. Sky and water are basically done.  Values in the sand were put in to set the tone and perspective.

My Branch

 

The photo above is of the revision done 12/26/14 with some suggestions from Lyn Asselta.  I believe it is much improved from the original photo published earlier and shown below.

 

Pastel on Wallis, 9x6

This painting started as a "daily" work, but I spent parts of two days on it - holiday interruptions.

This is my first bird in a long time – edited from a photo of a cardinal with attitude – “My Branch, My Tree.”

Invitation

Let's talk painting....

I love this photo for its overall appeal, graphic quality, color, and movement.  I have started a medium size work and realized that the picture has no specific focal point.  There is nothing special upon which the eye can rest.  I have a plan for what I will do, but I'm opening this to comment and suggestions.

Nursery Violas

Pastel on Wallis, 6x6

Daily painting of yellow violas we purchased for the garden. They are still in the plastic nursery pot.

I changed the background on this small piece a number of times looking for the right balance of tone and temperature.

Dune Shadows

Dune Shadows 

9x12 Pastel on Multimedia Artboard

This is my first painting on Multimedia Artboard.  The surface holds layer after layer of pastel, which I like.  Because the surface has some texture, I can render interesting nuances of tone and personality.

Autumn Pines, Study 1

Autumn Pines, Study 1

In this view of the salt marsh, my attention was drawn to the stand of pine trees with the sunlight streaming through the branches and the underbrush.

I sometimes get distracted in the painting process so I have started using a check list.  Here is a copy of the list I worked from for this painting.

Blue on Yellow

Pastel on Wallis, 9x6

I set this arrangement with blue plumbago flowers. Unfortunately, this painting was done mostly from photographs because the plumbago flowers began to droop almost immediately. I set these flowers in a small, Portuguese pitcher against a light yellow fabric drop.  About 10 last night I went back to look at the painting with the idea of throwing it out.  In a fit of desperation, I picked up the deepest yellow in my box and went to work. That added life by "punching" the yellow in the drop and the lavender in the shadows.

Patty's Cassia

"Patty's Cassia" - pastel on Wallis, 6x6
This was my effort for today.  I've had cassia flowers in a vase for the last two days, but did not find time to paint them until today.  I punched the colors for the background in order to emphasize the glorious yellow of the flowers.

"Amy's Anise"

"Amy's Anise" 9x9 on Wallis

I was inspired by a demo last Saturday by Donna Biggee for the First Coast Pastel Society.  I have not devoted myself to a "daily painting" routine for some time, but here is my effort for today.  It took my some time to get a still life display set up - I'm out of practice.

This little saki vase was just right form some anise blossoms that our neighbor had brought over. I wanted to capture the contrast between the dark orange blossoms on the bright blue of the vase.

Reason for not painting...

In case anyone is interested, here are 3 of the pieces of the kidney stone that sidelined me for June and most of the month of July.  The stone was originally 7.7 mm.  The largest chunk I recovered was almost 5x3 mm.

Expectations - Revision

"Expectation" Pastel on UArt - completed February 2014.

This painting, though pleasing, seemed to lack something. It was just there with nothing special.

I started my examination by creating a smaller, 5x7, with ink and watercolor on paper to explore new colors, forms, and values.

My first step was to do an ink line drawing from the original.

 

Over this ink sketch I added watercolor indicate the continuation of the pinks and lavenders into the salt marsh to replace some of the green.

 

Adding the color to the clouds, pointed out another basic difficulty with the original piece - that is that the bottoms of the clouds are all too flat.  The study, however, was too far along to make changes in either the drawing or the watercolor, so I sprayed the watercolor with fixative and applied a layer of clear gesso. This will help support substantial revisions when I apply the pastel.

 

 

"Evneing Clouds" - gave this 5x7 and new name.

This is the final rework of the 5x7.  I reduced the clouds by about 1/3, softened all the edges, expanded the water in the foreground, and reduced the colors to 3 - blue, orange, and purple (with just a touch of pink). Then I added just a little green for contrast and punched up the colors and values in the salt marsh.  Took a new photo which is much better.