Blue Jay

I've been yearning to do a pastel series of birds I've seen, and keep trying to get lots of nice photos with my camera. But with the shutter-speed lag time, and the speed of birds, they always seem to fly off or move before I get that perfect pose. I may have to spring for a DSLR camera next to replace my trusty 3-year-old Kodak DX6490.

But I did love this sassy blue jay who came to visit my feeders over the winter and often perched in the dogwood tree. Of course it was not in bloom then, but it's blooming beautifully now, so I took some blossom photos and have had a try at combining things.

I've been experimenting with pastel surfaces, and I'm not sure this one is a success. I usually use Canson paper as it's cheap and plentiful, but also flimsy - and I've been wanting something more sturdy. Of course sturdy also tends to mean "expensive". This was done on one of those canvas-on-cardboard supports readily available in art stores, and then coated with several coats of pastel primer.

But it was awful to work with. I felt like a sidewalk artist, as if I was laying my pastel down on concrete - very rough and gritty. Several times I was ready to toss this out the window. I'm not sure it's a favorite but I'm glad I persevered, though the quests for the perfect support (sturdy AND cheap AND easy to work with) continues.

Dashiki Too

Tonight I was running late, and felt like a cold was coming on, so I stopped at Whole Foods to buy some chicken soup, and that made me later yet! But it was nice and hot and hit the spot. I still felt achy and sore-throaty though, and left class 30 minutes early. I just could not concentrate tonight. But this was the last week of the model in the wonderful dashiki, and I just had to capture some of those cool vibrant colors. So this was what I managed to do during the time I did spend in class.

No class next week as the museum is gussying up for "Art in Bloom" so I need to make myself work on something if I can get the discipline.

Bird Watching

One of my other hobbies is birding. I'm no expert by any means as it's another one of those hobbies I took up after turning 50, like singing and painting. But I'm here in coastal North Carolina for a week visiting family. Yesterday I took a hike on the Theodore Roosevelt Nature Trail by the NC aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores. It was a lovely walk, and I've had several good walks on the beach at Fort Macon too.

But today I figured I'd better do something to make me not regret dragging all my pastels down to NC with me! So I figured I would "combine" my two hobbies and do a picture of some of the items that came along with me on my hike yesterday, and this is the result.

Dashiki

The model wore a really colorful African shirt this week in class. The details were so intricate there was no way to actually draw or paint it! I only attempted a bit of it anyway, but it was fun to use some of my brightest colors to catch a little of the spirit of the shirt.

Hurray for art class!

It was "back to school" for me tonight. First art class again since December. My dear teacher Alex was back, and I hope back on the road to good health. A small class though, only 8 students, and Alex's classes usually have waiting lists! A lot of new people too, with John being the only familiar face. We started with a bunch of 5 and 10 minute quick charcoal sketches, then graduated to a 20-minute pose. Then the final pose which lasted about an hour.

So I don't really call this a finished picture, just where I was when the hour was up. I see a few things I might have worked on if I'd had a little more time. But next week, while we do have the same model, she will be in different clothes and a different pose, so this is as far as this picture will get.

Vicki's Eagle

One of my other hobbies is bird watching, and one of the members of a bird-watching list I belong to lives in Alaska. I guess bald eagles are as common to her as pigeons are to me! But she has taken some great photos, and I loved one so much I asked her if I could do a pastel of it. She graciously agreed and this is the result. I took a little artistic license here - moving the eagle a bit so he's flying into the picture rather than out of it, and making him a mature bald eagle rather than a juvenile.

But this was fun to do. Perhaps another tweak here or there but I think it's mostly done. I had special fun using one of the Art Spectrum Plein Air boards for this, which I've been yearning for for a long time, and my sister bought me a couple for my birthday which was Friday. Thanks Patty! An absolutely perfect gift as I've been wanting these for so long. I guess I'll just have to break down and buy some for myself. :-)

Last goodbye to Maggie

This is a portrait I did of Maggie last year when I had the idea of doing portraits of my pets. But I never posted it on my blog as I received several criticisms of it on Wetcanvas, and I kept thinking maybe I would make changes. I was told:
1) The eyes were too "human" looking.
2) I should blend and smooth the fur more.

But I was thinking of Maggie today, and pulled it out, and decided:
1) Well there was something very "human" about Maggie, and I don't really want to change the eyes.
2) Smoothing the fur more or not is really an artistic call, not a technical one. And I was happy with how her fur turned out. So why should I change it to suit someone's else's opinion?

So I decided to leave her 'as is' and at long last her portrait gets its place on my blog too.

Maggie RIP (1991-2007)

This has been a hard week for me as my dog Maggie suddenly got so much worse. She was 15 1/2 and diagnosed with cancer a couple months ago, but she was still her indomitable old self, full of bounce and pep, so I was taking her for weekly treatments and giving her pills. I felt that as long as she was happy and bouncy I wanted to give her a chance.But suddenly this week all the bounce and happiness left her. Her appetite had been off and she had lost a lot of weight (from 57 to 40 pounds) but the last week she had seemed better, eaten better and gone back up to 42.

But this week she just stopped eating entirely. None even her favorites like cheese or ham or peanut butter could tempt her. She was down to skin and bones, and was getting weak and wobbly, so this morning I took her to see the vet.

So Maggie went to sleep at the vet's office this morning about 9:30. The vet could tell from his exam that just since last Monday all of a sudden the cancer had dramatically spread, and he felt that additional treatment would not buy her anything, but would be more for *me* than for her - but that this option was the best one for her. They gave her valium first so she was calm and relaxed, and I got to be with her and hold her and pet her the whole time.

It was fifteen years ago this month, March of 1992, when she came into my life as a wiggly puppy. She was a little terror, full of bounce and spunk. She was probably one of the smartest dogs I've ever had, and one of the most stubborn. Everyone laughed that she had *me* well-trained. She was always quite firm in letting me know when it was time to go out, when it was time to eat. And she never took no for an answer if she had decided it was time!

My folks have a summer place in Canada and Maggie went there every summer for fifteen years. She loved to run on the beach. She had the best fun chasing seagulls. This past summer she didn't run as much, but she still had a good time. She also loved the beach in North Carolina when I visited my dad and sister down there.

She was my "Energizer bunny" dog who kept going and going. Or I used to joke that I should have named her Molly instead of Maggie because she was like the Unsinkable Molly Brown, but eventually the cancer got too strong for even Maggie to keep fighting.

Here is a picture of her at one of her favorite activities from the summer of 2005 when she was still a spritely, energetic and active 13 1/2. I did this when I was still very new to pastels. Maybe I'll have to try it again now that I think I'm a little better than I was back then. Maggie was a good old girl.

Hands and Feet Workshop

I was back at Montclair Art Museum today for another workshop - this one on hands and feet. Hands and feet are a beastly struggle most of the time, and especially the hands!

This was tough too as poses were only 20 minutes long - we had three hand poses followed by three foot poses. 20 minutes is not enough! And I'm a generally speedy sketcher as well. But this was a bit stressful as no time to get all the proportions right.

But it was still a fun workshop, and a bit exciting as they were filming an episode of Law and Order: SVU while we were there today. Anyway, here are my 6 sketches in order:

Foreshortening workshop

Today I went to the Montclair Art Museum for a 4-hour workshop on foreshortening, which is always a huge struggle for me. It was good to be drawing again, and we did a series of short 20-30 minute poses which is good for my attention span. :-) This one was first:




And then the rest followed in the order shown. Drawing the figure is always a struggle as it's far less forgiving than drawing a leaf or a tree, LOL. But it's always good experience, and next week I go back for another workshop on hands and feet.

Carolina Wren

Hmmm. today I decided I had to do a picture of a bird, but trying to look through all my bird photos could take me days! They are scattered all through thousands of pictures in hundreds of albums. Some day I need to organize them. It would be great to be able to tag them with multiple tags as I can with emails sent to gmail. Something to look into ...

But I do love this little Carolina Wren who showed up a few weeks running early in the mild winter. I have not seen him in the last few weeks since it turned bitter cold, and hope he has just winged southward to warmer climes.

Gee, I was perfectly happy with this background when I saw it on my easel, but looking at it here online I'm itching to make some changes to it. We shall see.

Tea Leaves Two

I've been in a bit of an artistic slump lately, and have done nothing since my autumn art classes ended in December. The holidays were busy and January was dark. But this month I was inspired by the reference photo for the February challenge at wetcanvas and had to give it a try.

Yesterday the weather was nasty, and my boss let me leave work a couple hours early, so after I had shoveled the snow I had some free time, and decided to try some art! The above is the product of about 45 minutes worth of work, and then I had to take a break and let it set for a bit. I may still work on it a bit more. But it's been so long since I have had something new to post here I figured I would just go do it. :-)

The Last Accordian

I've been getting lazy with my art and need to find something to paint that will capture my interest. This is from the last art class for the fall back in December. December was too busy for painting after that, and I have not gotten inspired to start again ye!

Twisty Fingers

Wow, I see I've really been neglecting my blog lately! So much so that I came here to look, and found there was a whole new google blogger I had to sign up for! Luckily I already have a google gmail ID so that part of the conversion was easy. Anyway, November and December were just plain crazy months so blogging and artwork sort of fell by the wayside.

This is a picture I did in November in art class. I kept thinking eventually I'd get back to it and try to fix the hand and fingers, which are driving me crazy. However the time just has not manifested itself yet, so I'll just post "as is". Maybe having to look at it here will inspire me to drag it back out and see if I can perform hand surgery. :-)

Angel Back

In art class Wednesday we had Angel as our model again, the guy with a body like a classical Greek statue! :-) The easel I was at originally faced him from the front, but I really wanted to do a back view and was able to move to a different easel since some folks were missing. As a result I think I have a picture here I can show in public, LOL. This was actually rather fun to do, as I loved the dramatic lights and shadows on him.

Festive Apples

Last Saturday I took a drive up into New York State with two friends to tour "Boscobel" a lovely Federalist-style mansion dating from 1804, which sits right on the bank of the Hudson River, opposite West Point. It was a a gorgeous autumn day - crisp and sunny - and the leaves were just lovely. I got several beautiful photos. However, the one that caught my eye the most was this display of apples at the Boscobel gift store. It looked so festive, and who can resist apples?
:-)

The last of the Dancer

This is my effort from art class the last week of the dancer pose. I erased and redrew my picture 3-4 times, totally unsure of what I wanted. Finally wound up with this, but difficult as always with life drawing, as each time the model would get up and sit down again there would be so many changes. The flow of her skirt was never the same, nor was the foot she was sitting on.

October Sky

On WetCanvas we have a monthly Pastel Challenge where someone posts a reference photo of their choice, and everyone who participates is supposed to paint their version of it. I loved this month's reference, and this is my version of it which I painted this Sunday. This is a "fast and loose" painting which I only spent about 30-40 minutes on, but I'm happy with it.

And I found out from the person who posted the original photo that the photo was taken on Prince Edward Island. The bridge to PEI is only minutes from our Canadian farm and I have been to PEI many times, so it made me feel even more connected to this picture. :-)

The Seated Dancer - Take Two

This is from last week's art class. I was feeling exceptionally uninspired last week, and erased two complete initial sketches, unable to settle on what I wanted to do. I finally realized I could do the reflection in the mirror! I'm not happy with it overall as I think her head and profile are pretty bad, but I do like the drama of the lighting in this one. Maybe I'll just crop her head off as I do with many of my paintings. :-)

The Seated Dancer

Well, autumn classes have started at the museum, so it's back to my weekly figure studies. Alex is the instructor again. Our model was a bit late arriving, due to a small family crisis. Once she did arrive we worked with several quick 5-15 minute poses before settling on the "long" pose she will do for the next three weeks.

She did not start the long pose until almost 8:30 PM, so this was what I got done in the last hour of class.

Canadian sunrise

This is the most recent of my "Canadian farm" series, but I figure I'll try to do at least four more, and have enough to make a calendar! :-) This was done from a reference photo I took early one morning when the dogs got me up and out early, with the sun just rising in the east, with its light just "kissing" the edge of the roof on the small shed.

Canadian memories

I have fond memories of sleeping in the bedroom, the lampshade tilted so that I could get the most light on me to read in bed, and then waking up in the morning to look out the window and see the lovely bay. This year we even got new mattresses, so the beds are even almost comfy!

Canadian stained glass

I love the stained glass front windows in our Canadian farmhouse. On sunny days the light sparkles through them and casts colored red and blue shadows on the walls and floor. The day I painted this picture the light was more gray and cloudy, so so sparkles around, but I still love the view and the glass anyway.

Canadian hallway chest

This is the next in my "Canadian farm" series. The objects here are all "found" items that were in the farmhouse when my parents first bought it 33 years ago, a sturdy old wooden chest, a young girl's straw hat, and a beautifully framed old photograph of someone whose identity we will never know.

Canadian Corner

Ths is the fourth of my Canadian vacation paintings. This is a corner of the living room. Unfortunately I see this photo came out a bit tilted, although the actual painting itself is not, LOL. Myabe I'll try to correct that and redo this post.