Farm Fresh Eggs in pastel

Deb Richardson, artist and teacher at Cordovan Art School at Jerry's Artarama in Austin, brought fresh, colorful eggs from her sister's hen house for us to paint this evening. These are done in pastel on taupe ampersand board. I really prefer ampersand board to pastel papers - is easier for me to get a good base of pastel down and build on it.This is the first time that I have ever laid in a black background on a pastel and Deb had us lay the background in first. I was pleased with the piece. Robert thought the shadow to the left of the brown egg looked like another egg and originally I had it a bit darker and more "shadow" colored but there was a lot of blue reflected in the actual shadow so Deb suggested that I  put more blue in the shadow. It is really fun to capture the highlights in pastel as there is such  luminosity to them. Everyone in the class had a lovely finished piece this evening. Deb has us draw eggs to practice for portrait painting- the shapes in eggs certainly mimic the rounds in cheeks, noses, chins. 
Next Monday, we change over from pastels to watercolor for a month and I am looking forward to learning new techniques for my watercolors from Deb.

Carol Smith's Clay Sculpture of John Calvin

Here is Carol's amazing sculpture of young John Calvin! This is her first ever attempt at sculpting!

Carol Smith's pencil drawings

                             PERFECT VASE
Carol has achieved such great volume, highlights and symmetry in this lovely drawing.


                                                                                                EYES!
My friend and fellow artist, Carol Smith, did these wonderful pencil drawings. Carol also is a graphic designer who designs book covers for publishers.


Carol recently visited her artistic sister in Kerrville who introduced her to sculpting in oil base clay. Carol has done a wonderful sculpture of a young John Calvin and hopes to have it cast in bronze soon. I will post her finished product. She is delighted with this 3D medium and plans to continue her efforts in sculpture.

Framed Phlox, Bluebonnets & Prickly Pear Cactus Sold To Christi for her mother's birthday

Here is the previously posted (2/28/12) Phlox, Bluebonnets & Prickly Pear Cactus that Christi purchased for her mother's birthday. The matting and framing look really nice! Thanks for sharing it Christi! Her mother moved away from Texas and Christi wanted to remind her of all the lovely wildflowers & cactus  in Texas that we all love.

Kaleidoscope Poppies - still in progress

Almost finished with the Poppies - had some difficulty with some of the washes but overall I am pleased with this first effort. I will post the finished product soon. This is watercolor on Arches 140 paper.

Pastel Still Life

I painted this still life in pastel tonight at Deb Richardson's class at Jerry's Artarama. I use mostly Rembrandt soft pastels and this was done on Canson white pastel paper. Pretty satisfied with it, Looks a little duller here in the photograph than it does in person. Deb spent this afternoon being the featured "Artist In the Window" at Jerry's doing a wonderful black and white charcoal bust portrait of a young cowboy in a weathered hat with a bandana around his neck...she will enter it into an art competition. Deb also brought her commissioned  oil portrait of a boy stepping down the steps of a train...FANTASTIC! Her composition was well done and the train didn't overshadow the boy even though there was some exquisite detail on the train. 
BY THE WAY  -  IF YOU CLICK ON ANY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE ART IN MY BLOG, YOU WILL HAVE A LARGER VIEW OF THE PICTURE, SHOWS MORE DETAIL.

Orange Studies

 

Here are the three orange studies. Top left is dry  brush watercolor, center lower is pastel, top right is wet on wet watercolor. Let me know which you like best and why on comments please.

Watercolor Oranges in Wet Washes

Same oranges this time done on Arches 140 paper and painted wet washes over wet washes. It turned out darker than the others but seems more realistic. Lots of color blooms from the wet on wet. Interesting. It was hard to maintain the white areas as the color bled a lot even though I used a sponge to lift color in the highlight areas.

Value Studies of Central Park

These value studies show white->black, then done in a warm color and a cool color. I have a really hard time establishing values especially in color. There is just such a small variation and the color washes often dry lighter than I think I am seeing them initially when wet. A frustrating but necessary exercise. This is the hard part of art, trying to learn the science behind what makes a painting work or not - values, composition, highlights, low-lights, so much to think about!              

Pastel Oranges

This is another study of the oranges done in pastel on pastel paper that was very "toothy". Leaves weren't as nice as I'd hoped. I prefer pastels on gator board primed with textured gesso or ampersand board.

Watercolor Oranges

Watercolor study of oranges. Done on rough paper, not Arches. 
I am going to redo this with more underwashes of watercolor. Also I will post the same study done in pastels.

Pastel Class with DK Richardson @ Jerry's Artarama

Last evening was the first in a series of pastel classes taught by Debra Richardson at Jerry's Artarama. Great class. We did some work on color theory, blending techniques, safety precautions with pastels and the dust they create. After working on basic color blends, we did a quick study of still life forms and used warm and cool colors to make them come forward or recede in the picture and represent the light and shadows.