Hoot Hoot! my pastel owls

I thought I was tired of painting birds….. I had painted about 50 of them in watercolor. But I was missing them! So I decided to give the birds a try in pastel with an underpainting of Artisan water mixed oil paint. My goal is to be more expressive with the pastel rather than painting every detail as I tried to do with watercolors.

9"x12"  SOLD

Owls were always my favorite  to paint…..their eyes always a fascination to me. So I painted more.

12"x14"

12"x16"

I will most likely paint more…...

More about the sky……..

I never had really paid that much attention to the sky, but now I found myself always looking UP when I headed outside. It really is amazing how beautiful it can be.

After doing the ten 5"x7"studies, I was ready to try something bigger. I worked as large as 12"x18".

My sky pastels will be available at the Whimsical Wares Art and Gift show November 12-16 at Paper Mill Village Marietta GA.

Please look at the pastel photo album on my art page at FB (Bonnie Morgan Hyde fine art) for more images of my pastel work.

My sky studies

A good friend of mine suggested that I paint the sky. I put it off, not feeling confident enough to paint it. I had done a pastel workshop on the sky, but still wasn't ready. My pastel instructor had headed off on a cruise and was posting 5"x7" studies of the sky. This size seemed less intimidating to me, so I thought I would give this a try myself. Unfortunately I was not going on a cruise! So I headed outside and observed the sky locally.

Once I got going with it, I really enjoyed painting the sky. I took a lot of photos and did some reading on cloud formation. I didn't spend more than 20 minutes on each of the 5"x7" studies. Now I find myself always looking up at the sky.

 In the end I liked them so much that I decided to frame them all together and hung it in my studio!.  I have digitally scanned and printed giclee copies of all 10 of the sky studies. They will be available for sale at the Whimsical Wares art and gift show November 12-16 at Paper Mill village in Marietta GA.

Part 10 - more landscapes , studies in color and composition

 I spent a lot of time focused on painting landscapes this summer. I worked on color, wanting it to be more expressive. And I wanted good composition . Before I even put the pastel to the paper I would do a sketch in my sketchbook and a value study. I think this really helped me to end up with a better painting.

This last one I am posting is a redo from the same reference photo that I used when I first started with the pastels. I sold that first painting. But I wanted to try it again to see if I could improve on it.

Well, that's it for now. I'm going to take a few days off and heading out and hopefully will come home with some new photos  and fresh thoughts to work on in my studio. 

Part 9 - Summer comes and so do flowers.

I seem to follow the seasons with my painting. So when spring and summer came, everything turning green and flowering……. that's what I focused my painting on.

I was afraid to paint the flowers, afraid I would get caught up in the details , like my watercolors. I had to look at them differently. I  had to simplify them and just get the expression of the flowers.

Part 8 - feeling free

The workshops with pastel artist, Karen Margulis , are so inspiring to me. I was so caught up with the detail with my watercolors. The pastel seemed to free me. I had to have more pastels…..

 So I bought some more, some soft pastels, some hard and some with pumice. So exciting! I wanted to be more expressive, focus on the color and composition in my work. Karen's workshops focused on landscapes and so did I.

 I still had so much to learn. But what I was really excited about was that I didn't have to give up on the watercolor and oil paint - I could use them as under paintings for the pastel. This was just the beginning. I tried to paint, or draw, or research other artists everyday. I immersed myself into it completely.  Stay tuned…..

Part 7 - the beginning of 2014…..pastels

My journey continues…...

After painting with watercolors for the last two years, I was felling I needed to try something else. Being a fine arts major in college, we were able to experience many of the fine arts and different mediums. It's hard for me to stick with one for too long because I love them all. So it was time for me to  focus on another medium. That friend of mine who inspired me to pick up my brushes again, was now working in pastels. AH! the color, the texture, the papers and her beautiful work - it brought back the excitement. I bought my first set of pastels, a basic set of soft pastels from Sennelier.

I set out to use the pastels and did these two paintings from photos my dad had taken 50 years ago where I grew up.  I felt frustrated and had no idea how to use the pastels, I didn't have the right colors. So I bought some more pastels. These sets from Terry Ludwig.

 My art friend suggested I take a pastel class from a local pastel artist, Karen Margulis, who lived close by.  I walked out of that first workshop so excited and ready to paint every day. Here is one of my first pastels from that workshop.

 I painted this from a photo I had taken at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I have mostly used my own photos for my pastel work.  I felt like if I had more of a connection with the reference photo that my paintings would have more meaning. Please follow along with me as I write more about the workshops with Karen Margulis. She has been such an inspiration in my art journey.

Part 6….other watercolors

My next area of interest , I just call "other watercolors". They are paintings that were not part of a grouping and are basically landscape and vintage buildings.

This was the first one I had done. It had a different style than my usual detailed paintings. I was trying to loosen up my style and focus more on the color. But I still liked those detailed paintings.

This one is watercolor and oil paint, I wanted to experiment with mixing mediums.

 As I got more confident with my watercolor skills, I wanted to expand on my subject matter. But there was something else…. I was not as excited about what I was doing. I needed more…..

Just a reminder….please look at my FB art page, Bonnie Morgan Hyde fine art, and look at the photo albums for more of my work. There are about 100 watercolors in all.

Part 5…..butterflies

This was a special little grouping, another idea for cards, but have not printed them yet. I am always trying to think of ways to sell my work other than just a painting or print, something with a practical use. There are only 6 of these paintings. I have them digitally scanned and printed, but I am finally ready to part with the original paintings…..those pieces of me…….