Color Pencil Studies

This is the study that we did at our first class. The bottom two are cherries. The top is  an apple that the teacher said looks  "just like a pumpkin". I  wasn't pleased with my studies  so I will rework these studies this week and we'll  see  if I can  get any improvement before  next week's class.

Thursday Night at Laguna Gloria

I am taking  a 4 week course on  color pencil technique. Not used with water color  or as a wash but as pencils on their own.  We started out with learning to shade from very light to  darker then shading with different colors.  We also made a color wheel to  learn about primary, secondary, tertiary colors, complimentary and analogous colors. Interesting, small class,  not an easy technique for me, very different from watercolor but similar to pastel in color layering and mixing.

Grant & Brandy @ Salt Lick, Driftwood, Texas - Grant's 27th Birthday

Grant & Brandy at the Salt Lick, Driftwood, Texas  celebrating Grant's  27th birthday. Watercolor on  Arches paper.

William's Fish in Charleston

This watercolor is done on Arches  cold-pressed paper. Salt added to sand areas for texture. William is  striking a pose reminiscent of his famous "first fish" in Port Aransas, Texas back when he was 5 years old (previously posted on February 19, 2012).

Painted Bunting in a Stream

Day 2 of Rita Kirkman's Pastel Workshop in Rockdale, Texas. This is a  6" x 6" piece of gator board that has been primed in Terra Cotta with fine texture. Then the bird is done in pastels. He is still a work in progress...details still to be added, I will post his finished picture later. I was pleased with the result and learned alot. Rita did a demo of a landscape in the morning then a sunset over the water in the afternoon. Great Teacher and Artist!

Rita doing a pastel demo

Here is Rita Kirkman doing a pastel demo for the workshop in Rockdale. She did 2 demos today and we observed then tackled our own work. Rita is wonderful with suggestions  and constructive critique, very encouraging and supportive.Check out Rita's work and learn  more about her at http://ritakirkman.com    or  at  http://ritakirkman.blogspot.com/ . Rita  recently won First Place in Show at the Austin Pastel Society Juried member  Exhibition!

Longhorn

Here is my pastel Longhorn from Thursday's workshop with Rita Kirkman in Rockdale. It was a great day. Rita is a wonderful artist and great teacher as well. This is 6" x 8" and is done on Wallis pastel paper with Rembrandt soft pastels. This is a new media for me and it is VERY different from watercolor but I learned a lot today and was pleased with the finished work.