Austin Pastel Society Annual Show

I was so excited to receive the "Best of Show" prize for my bobcat.

As you can see from the grin on my face I was very happy and surprised.

Second white pitcher

I reworked the background on the right side of the pitcher.

I learned that gray in pastel needs to be a mixture of colors, not black with a lot of white in it. If you look at the previous blog, and compare it to this one, you might see the difference.

The area is under the spout and to the right.

I want to do something else and work with the grays.

White pitcher

This is a study of a white object on a colored background. It got a little messy, but it was fun to do.

white paper with under wash challenge

This is Uart paper 600 grit with an under wash of warm colors.

The shadow forms from the large trees bugs me. I would do some things differently, but had to stop before my head exploded.

This is very different from how I paint, so it was indeed a challenge.

One of the things I enjoyed about this workshop and challenge was to watch accomplished landscape artists in our group stretch too, and have a hard time getting a good painting out of a workshop exercise.

I always think I am the only one who can't paint a good painting all the time. It encouraged me to do more exercises.

Black paper challenge

I attended the Liz Haywood-Sullivan workshop this past week-end. She had us do a painting on Black Canson paper, and then the second day we did the same reference landscape on white sanded paper with an under wash.

This is the result of the first day. Very quick work and rather unfinished looking, but you can see the drama of the dark paper showing thru.

I will show the next one tomorrow.

Green Eyes Cousins

I have my two kitties with me in this painting.

I finished this self portrait in pastel before the workshop painting in oil.

I am hoping to transfer some of the techniques to my pastel painting.

red grapes

My final painting for the workshop was this little sprig of grapes. I spent about 30 minutes working with different objects to get a composition I liked.

It was good to know that others have to take a long time to get set-up too.

If I don't feel inspired by the set-up, the fun goes out of the painting process. And that is what I have found to be the point of painting...not the product, but the experience of painting.

Oranges and Plumb

This painting was a four color challenge with three colors close on the color wheel, blue, turquoise, and purple, with the compliment, orange.

It turned out better that I thought it would. I was very leery of the background blue being so intense, but then I watched Carol go even more saturated with her demo. Very exciting.

Tea and Strawberries

This is my second painting from the workshop...I also painted these strawberries 8 times in an exercise in quick 2 minute intervals.

By the time I was done with these berries, they were roasted from the lights.

I noticed that the interior ellipse on the cup is off.

I practiced ellipses because they are challenging and Carol said to stretch and be challenged. There are 4 in this painting. Can you count them?

Some Like It Hot

This is the first of the paintings I did for Carol Marine's workshop this last week.

It was an excellent jump start for me after a year of not painting much.

The exercises were challenging and met with much whining on my part, but I learned a lot from each one. And I would have not done them on my own.

Carol is very attentive and a really good teacher. Which I can't always say about good artists whose work I admire. Having both talents is unusual.