Three's a Crowd I

Three's A Crowd, Pastel, 9x12

This is the first in a series of pear studies I will be doing. I decided to break into the pack of professional wallis paper for the first time. It is very similar to the colourfix which I have fallen in love with. I used mostly the Rembrandts with a touch of Great Americans during the final stage.

An Apple A Day VII

An Apple A Day VII, 9x12, Pastel

Sickness has kept me from painting for a week but I did spend some time reading a new book I purchased, "Capturing Radiant Light and Color in Oils and Pastels" by Susan Sarback. Today I worked on trying to implement some of her approach in my apple studies. I started by blocking in shadow masses with cool colors and then blocked in the light masses with warm colors. From there you continue to refine and define each mass. I seem to get stuck on step three, hmmmmm!

An Apple A DayVI

An Apple A Day, Pastel, 9X12 on colourfix

Today I decided to include the glass goblet again. I see improvement on the proportions and ellipses on the goblet . I have new softer pastels to work with but I am missing most of the colors I need in them, grrrr. I keep going back to using the Rembrandts for final layers.

Apple studies continue

Apple study done on 6x6 Mi-Teintes
I tried out the new pastel pencils I got earlier this week. Used them in the final blending stage on the apples. I started this study out by using Rembrandts to lay in the foundation colors. Next I used the softer brands of pastels over the top of the under painting. Unfortunately the texture of the layers is not showing up in the photo.

First try at glass

An Apple A Day V, Pastel, 10x12 on Mi-Teintes

I could hardly wait to get in the studio this morning so I could try out the new pastels that arrived yesterday. The pan pastels go on the surface very smoothly and a large area can be filled with color quickly with one of the larger sponges. The Ludwigs and Great Americans are both very creamy and I found that little pressure is needed to apply color. I am not a pastel color person but I really liked the delicate feel of this still life. The glass goblet is from my Great-Grandmothers set of glassware that goes with her beautiful china. Dear grandma and mom blessed me with the whole set this past spring. I have never attempted glass before and found it to be very challenging. I think I need more practice with shiny surfaces first. Even with all it's flaws I do like the delicate feel of this piece.

An Apple A Day IV

I was so excited to find two boxes from Dick Blick in the garage this morning. Getting the boxes unpacked and the new supplies put away was about all I could manage today. My cold was worse this morning and I have a feeling it may have been from over doing it yesterday and possibly from the pastel dust in the studio. This 10X12 apple study was done on Mi-Teintes using a mix of Rembrandts and Sennelier pastels. I do not like the shadows on this, I think the color is too warm maybe if I had used a cooler tone. I am liking the striped pattern for backgrounds.

Apples and Cup Studies

I caught a bad cold the start of last week and am still feeling very congested. I did go on the annual Duluth trip with Mom, Grandma and the girls for four days. We decided to go down to the canal Friday evening and found that there was a gallery crawl that evening, how lucky was that? We spent four hours visiting several galleries located on the canal and up on superior street. Saturday we spent about two and half hours at the Tweed Museum located on the UMD campus. This museum had a wonderful mix of art forms in traditional, modern and contemporary art styles. We all agreed that this was a stop that we would have to put on the agenda for next year. I returned Sunday evening feeling very tired and sore. Today I decided to spend some time with the pastels. I was surprised that my apples are still holding up. After playing with several arrangements I decided to add my coffee cup and finally I felt inspired.

An Apple A Day III, Pastel, 11X13