It's cold outside!

5"x7" pastel study $35

It's the middle of winter and it's cold outside! What place do you think about? For me it's the beach! I want to put my feet in the sand and sit in the warm sun! Today's workshop with Karen Margulis was all about that. She asked us to bring beach reference photos and I was excited deciding which ones to bring. For the workshop we talked about creating pathways for our viewer to keep them involved in the painting. It was great fun and Karen even had the beach music playing while we painted.

5"x7" pastel study $35

Wild flower field

9"x9" wildflower field $70

Todays workshop with Karen Margulis was about what makes a good or bad reference photo and how to create depth in a painting. I decided to use a photo I had taken in Gibbs Garden last fall. 

reference photo

I loved the colors in the photo. I remembered how excited I was walking through the fields. I took several photos. I used Wallis warm belgium mist sanded paper 9"x12". I had only experimented on it , but thought it would be a good base for the fields.

I struggled with the painting in the workshop, the colors were dark and had lost their vibrance. So I brushed out areas of pastel, sprayed with fixative and went back to work on it. I got this far and had to stop.

 I pulled it out later when I got home and looked at with fresh eyes. I liked the area on the lower right, this was working for me. I decided to cut it down to 9"x9". The square format seemed better. I sprayed some more areas to rework. In the end I was happier with it, but I realized when I started the painting that I really did not have a good plan.

How important is the placement of the horizon line in your painting?

5"x7" landscape study $35

Today's workshop with Karen Margulis was about placing the horizon line on your painting. We talked about the different paper formats (square, rectangle, elongated). Do you want the painting to be about the sky or the ground in a landscape. I prefer the sky and chose a reference photo that I have painted before. The exercise was to do two 5"x7" studies only spending 15 mins on each. This first photo is the one I did first where my focus was on the sky.

5"x7" landscape study $35

My second  study was more about the ground. I ended up doing another 5 or 10 mins more work on this at home…. I wasn't happy with the way it turned out. Then we had about an hour to paint another larger painting thinking about the placement of the horizon line. I chose to use the same reference photo since I had the 2 studies to work from. 

8"x10" pastel on Uart $60

I chose a 8"x10" Uart paper. Right now I prefer to work smaller but this would be fine. I wanted the painting to be more about the sky, but I think the sky and ground ended up being equal in interest.  Of the three that I painted today, I like my first 5"x7" study. It looked the freshest to me. With the limited 15 minutes, I had to get in the basic shapes and values and get my point across.  This is more of the direction I want to go with my paintings going forward. Looking forward to my next workshop with Karen Margulis!

Morning has broken…..

14"x14" pastel  $100

Morning has broken like the first morning

Blackbird has spoken like the first bird

Praise for the singing, praise for the morning

Praise for them springing fresh from the Word

Remember the song by Cat Stevens? This song has special meaning for me. When I am out in the early morning walking my Siberian Husky, just before the sun rises, the sky is so soft in pinks, yellows and blues pastel. This song usually comes to mind for me. I have many sky photos from these early morning walks. I decided on a square 14"x14" format on Uart 500 paper for this one. I used a grid on the reference photo and the painting so the clouds were properly placed.

reference photo and pencil drawing with grid

For my underpainting, I decided to use soft pastels to block in the cloud shapes and colors.Then I did a an alcohol wash with a paint brush to blend the pastel. I wanted the painting to have a soft feeling.

soft pastels

alcohol wash with a paint brush blending in the pastels

I thought I would end up spending more than a day working on the sky, but the painting came together in about 2 hours. 

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning

Born of the one light, Eden saw play

Praise with elation, praise every morning

God's recreation of the new day

pastel painting for today

Gibbs Garden 9"x12"  $80

My trips to Gibbs Garden over the last year have been for taking photos to paint from. I love going there with my friends!  This trip was March 2014. It was a beautiful sunny day and the daffodils were at peak. Seeing the photo brought back the emotions of the day. I decided to do a pen and watercolor sketch to work out the basic shapes and colors.

reference photo and sketch.

I used my favorite pastel paper - Uart 500 grit sanded. I did a pencil drawing and decided to use the watercolor for the underpainting. I wanted the painting to be bright and airy.

One of my goals for this year is to get better at composing a good photo. I'm going to paint from my own photos only and when the weather warms up, I will head outside and start painting plein air.

a new year

9"x12" pastel on Uart   $80

The new year has begun and I am happy to be back at my normal routines. Today I started a new six week session of 3 hour pastel workshops with Karen Margulis on how to use and take a better reference photo and composition. These workshops keep me focused on painting and Karen is such an inspiration! There is always room to grow with my art. I enjoy the company of other artists and we were all excited to start the class. Karen starts out with a talk, has handouts and usually refers us to a good art book. I keep a folder of all her handouts with photos so I can go back and refer to them.

Karen then gives us a demo - it's always amazing to watch her painting emerge.

some photos of Karen's progression

Then, we get to work. We had about an hour and half. I decided to use a photo that I had taken last spring at Gibbs Garden. It was cold outside and I wanted to think about being warmer. I had painted a 5"x7" of the photo last year. So I decided to paint a 9"x12" and see how my pastel skills had improved. Karen had us stop every 15 minutes to step back and look at our paintings. This really helped us to see what we needed to do as we progressed. At the end I went around and took a photo of everyone's painting.

class work

Here is my painting from a year ago

looking forward to next weeks workshop