Painted Bunting in Color Pencil

This little bird was done from the same photograph that I did the pastel painted bunting  - posted  on Friday, March 2,  2012. This was done this evening in Pat Falconer's Laguna Gloria class using Pat's special color  pencil technique. We underlay color then swab over it with a q-tip soaked in Gamisol (odorless mineral spirits) which creates a watercolor-like wash of color that is very subtle. Then additional colors may be layered over that initial wash of color. It is a fun technique and could be used very successfully to enhance water colors as well and I am anxious  to have some time to experiment with that.  Pat has  either a very realistic  style or whimsical style. I have been  slightly more  abstract in my approach. One more class next  week! It has been good, I will take a  class from Pat again. Look for her classes on the current summer schedule for  Laguna Gloria Art School.

Color Pencil Bell Pepper

This bell pepper was less successful than the pear.  It was hard to capture the luster of the pepper and blend the red and green skin the way that I was actually seeing it on the pepper.  Also, the sections of the pepper were hard to capture.

Color Pencil Pear



This past Thursday's Color Pencil  Art  Class  ar Laguna Gloria was a great learning experience on a new method.This  colored pencil  pear was really successful. We  used odorless mineral spirits to  dissolve and  smooth the first layer of color -  which was like an underwash of water color. Then it was really easy to add additional layers of  colors and highlights. This was a good attempt, I think. You  can see a little blush of  color on the pear and "freckles" as well.



New Color Pencil drawings

New attempt on the color pencil studies from  last week's class.  Better. The apple does  resemble an apple and not a pumpkin! And a little  clutch of cherries.  I  have found that  I work better  with the still life in front of me - a real apple and a computer image of  cherries  rather than just out of my head  as the teacher had us  do in the  class. It is  easier to  refer back to the  subject and consider where the light is coming from to see the shadows and highlights.

Starry Night

My rendition of Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh - this was a really fun class at Jerry's Artarama in Austin with Misty Poe, a fine young artist and good teacher - check out Misty at  mistypoe.etsy.com and www.mistypoe.blogspot.com. This  painting is done with acrylic paint on canvas. I haven't painted in  acrylics since 1978! It was fun though and I like my finished  product. Jerry's  Friday  Night  classes are to  encourage budding artists with a finished product in one evening's class and to learn new techniques  - mission accomplished.


Vincent Van Gogh original

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.