Red-tailed Hawk

Another one for my bird series. It's fun being able to combine my twin passions of birding and pastel art. I was down in Newark's Branch Brook Park a month or so ago, and was at a spot where I had seen goldfinches in the past, hoping to see some again. And what happened but this gorgeous re-tailed hawk came flying in and landed on the tree right next to me. I tried to be as quiet as I could while snapping picture after picture of him. What a beauty. He was there for a few minutes until a jogger came running along the path and scared him away. The jogger, head down, just kept on moving, and never never noticed the large lordly bird he had flushed. So I decided I had to paint the hawk's portrait.

Arete

My personal life has been so busy for the last few weeks that I have been away from art for a long time. But today I stopped in to see Alex Piccirillo at his life drawing class, and he let me sit in to do a makeup for the session that got cancelled for our last class. Our model, Arete, was a lovely young woman with the classic sort of profile you might expect to see on a Grecian urn. And I loved the red of her dress! It was fun getting dusty again - although the next month or two will be so crazy I'm not sure how much I'll get to it.

I'm in the process of moving to Florida, and have an offer in on a house down there. Assuming all goes through I'll have a room in the house that can be my art studio! That's pretty exciting in and of itself. I'll have to post pictures when I get there.

The Karaoke Singer

This is done from a reference photo I took in March of 2010 when I was on my cruise to the Bahamas. A group of us often hung out in the evening in the karaoke lounge, and quite a few folks did get up to sing!

This was Christina Denton, who belted out a fine version of The Beach Boys' "Be True to Your School". I had long hoped to paint this image and show it to Christina. But, sadly, she passed away last year only months after the cruise, as a complication of a minor cosmetic surgery. Our same group will be cruising again in just a little over a week, May 1-7. I'm sure many of us will be thinking of Christina.

Dinner at Dysart's

LOL, after the hustle and bustle of '42nd Street' I needed something more soothing to paint. And what could be more soothing than a nice slice of pumpkin pie topped by freshly whipped cream! I took this photo last summer when I stopped for a meal at Dysart's, a truck stop/restaurant in Bangor, Maine that has been a family favorite for at least 30 years or more. It's not at all fancy or elegant, but serves good home-style food 24x7, 364 days a year (closed only for Christmas).

I stopped and ate there last summer on my way to Canada, and had a nice cup of lobster stew and a lobster roll, followed by this slice of pumpkin pie for dessert, and I just had to take the photos to send to family to show them I was there. Yum, dessert is finished now. Maybe next time I'll paint the lobster stew and roll since I took a photo of that too. :-)

Done on 9x12 art spectrum as usual.

42nd Street

Today was the second day of my 2-day workshop with Frank Federico. Yesterday he had us do landscapes, which was something most of us were familiar with. But today he wanted us to do cityscapes featuring vehicles and people! Everyone in the entire class, all 16 of us, admitted this was *way* out of our comfort zone. Eeek.

But I did bring in a photo that suited the theme, even though I was terrified with its "busyness" - but heck, it was a workshop. Being forced out of your comfort zone is part of what a workshop is all about. So the above is the painting I did from my own reference photo. It's done on my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum, with a pastel and turpenoid underpainting. The scene is 42nd Street in New York City, by Times Square. The three foreground figures on the right are actually my daughter-in-law, my son, and my daughter-in-law's sister.

Interestingly, Frank liked my photo well enough that he asked if he could have a copy, as he said he'd love to paint the scene himself - so I gladly gave him the copy I'd printed from my computer. I'd love to see what he would do with the scene! Way more than I did, that's for sure. :-)

Conch's Point

I'm taking a two-day workshop, today and tomorrow, with Frank Federico. He's a funny guy, great teacher, and like all good artists - seems to make turning out a beautiful painting look so easy! We were all in awe of the demo he did. Then it was our turns. Today we were supposed to do landscapes and tomorrow cityscapes. For my landscape I chose this photo I took a couple weeks ago down in coastal North Carolina, where I was visiting with my sister. This lovely view is just a couple blocks from her house, and I walked down there every morning with my dog Flo.

This was done on a sheet of 9x12 art spectrum, with a pastel and turpenoid underpainting. Now to try to find a cityscape reference photo! Eeek, city paintings are not generally my thing.

Ospreys

I had such a great time birdwatching while visiting with my son and his family in Jacksonville Beach, Florida for Christmas. I especially enjoyed the frequent visits from a pair of ospreys that often flew over the apartment complex. I did my best to take some photos of them, most of which didn't turn out, naturally. LOL. But I finally finished up this painting last night, which is actually an amalgam of two different photos I took. Done on 9x12 art spectrum paper.

Racing the Storm

This is done from a reference photo I took last summer when I was up at the farm in Canada. I had gone for a walk one afternoon, but as I was walking the weather suddenly began to darken. Winds came up and storm clouds began to roll in, so I turned around and headed for home, hoping to get there before the storm broke. The dark clouds were all facing me as I headed home, and shortly before I got there this car came over a small rise towards me, its headlights shining bright in the blackness of the day, and I had to take the photo, and have been yearning to paint it ever since. This was done my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum.

I finished early and still had time to go in class, so started a second painting, a composite of two reference shots I took in December of a pair of ospreys that hung around the apartment complex where my son and daughter-in-law live in Jacksonville Beach, FL. I'm getting quite a bird series now, so will see where this one goes.

Secondaries

LOL, the model who had been hired for our art class today never showed up! So we dithered a while, they tried to reach him ... no luck. Finally one of the women in the class, who also does modeling for artists professionally, offered to sit for us for the last two hours of class. She posed nicely though her clothing was a bit boring for artwork - a white top and gray slacks. But I loved her hair color! So I took a little bit of liberty with the colors of the clothing, and used the painting as an exercise in using the secondary colors on the color wheel: orange, green and violet.

Today is my birthday, and I had a crazy and busy morning, so I got to art class and realized I didn't have my art supplies with me. I had removed them all for a trip to North Carolina last week. So I used some spare pastels and a sheet of Canson drawing paper that they had at the museum, so I'm not sure of the size, but close to my usual 9x12.

Last Guitar

... this model is such a nice person, and I love Alex, and the other students are great too. But I am so sick of this darn guitar pose. She is doing this exact same pose for *six weeks* and I just no longer find anything of interest in it for me, or any angle that I feel like using as a compositional focus. I finally wound up with this one for today - done on 12x16 Canson paper, smooth side. She'll be doing this same pose again next week, but I'll be away in North Carolina, and when I get back again we'll have a new model and a new pose! Hurray.

Guitars again

I'm still experimenting in my life drawing class. This is from Wednesday's class, done on 12x16 Canson paper, smooth side.

A Painter's Progress

Since the farm in Canada is one of my favorite inspirations I thought it would also be fun to show how painting it has changed over the years as I have worked on my art. When I think about my own entry into the fine art world, after many decades away from it, I think of it in 2 phases:

1) the abortive first attempt - which took place in 2002.

2) the second attempt - which took place in 2005, which totally captured me and drew me into pastels - a passion which continues to this day.

In 2002 I first signed up to take a beginning drawing class, feeling my drawing skills were very poor and rusty. We mostly drew in that class, and I enjoyed the practice. Our teacher did introduce us to pastels when we tried working with color. And I both enjoyed it and hated it. I liked it as I liked working with color, and I liked the immediacy of pastels. But I *hated* everything I attempted. They all looks childish and hopelessly amateurish. And of course they were. But I realize now, in retrospect, that a lot of my frustration was due to my total lack of understanding about how to use pastels - and this was not taught in the class.

In other words, I used them sort of like a child's crayons - laying a light color down on a piece of paper. I had not a clue about multiple layering, thick applications of color, scumbling, mixing and/or blending of colors. I colored so lightly there was nothing to blend anyway. :-)

I wanted to learn to draw and color well, and I wanted to do a painting of our farmhouse, and I just had no clue what I was doing or how to accomplish it. And the painting below is one I did of the farmhouse in that era - my first attempt.

As you can tell it a very poor use of pastels. Only light single layers of colors, sketched on as if with a crayon or colored pencil. I hated it, so after that 2002 class I decided art was not for me and I gave up.

But I still had a yearning for art, and in 2005 I signed up for another beginning drawing class, with a different teacher. She also introduced us to pastels when we did some color work, but this time I got some feedback on the *real* use of pastels - laying in multiple layers of color, using the sides of the pastels to put down swaths of color, rather than just the timid use of a tip. Suddenly I had fallen madly in love with pastels! I have taken classes continually since them and work on painting every week. The work I was turning out, while still clearly "beginnerish", was far and away a different caliber from what I had done in my 2002 class, and I was no longer totally embarrassed and ashamed by my work. So in that environment I decided to do another painting of the farm, which I did en plein air when up at the farmhouse for summer vacation. Large storm clouds rolled in as I worked and luckily I was close to the house as I had to grab all my stuff and race to the kitchen to escape the rain! But I was far happier with the attempt and felt it actually looked like a real painting, unlike the 2002 attempt.

I liked it well enough that I found myself thinking that the farm was "done" - so no need to paint it again, except I still felt a yearning for it. So finally a couple years later I tried a different scene, the farmhouse in the early evening dusk. The perspective seems a little odd in this one though. The shed walls to the right seem to be marching uphill somehow, so it sort of spoils it for me, although I was happy with the sky, and the glow from the windows.

But the farm is never truly done I guess, so I just recently made another attempt, now six years since I have been pasteling in earnest. This one was inspired by the lovely light and colors of the autumn that I saw when I was up at the farmhouse for a week in October this past year. This one is truly my favorite farm painting now. Will I still be saying that in a few more years if I continue to turn out additional paintings? Who knows?

A Painting's Progress

I took a few pictures along the way as I painted this one, so decided that again I would post a series showing how the painting developed. Here I have basicaly finished the sky, but began to lay in some colors in the farm house as a sort of underpainting - with bright and strong colors. Note that you can also make out quite a bit of my underlying sketch also. Some people do initial drawings that are so detailed they are almost works of art in and of themselves! But drawing is not my strongest suit, and I love the bright colors of pastels. So my intial drawings tend to be very simple, just simple charcoal lines.

Now I have also filled in some underpainting colors on the side of the house in addition to the front.
Starting here to layer more colors on top of the underpainting, to get closer to the actual colors I'm hoping for in the finish.

The house is pretty close to the finish I want for it at this point, so now beginning to lay in some lights, darks, and strong colors for the grasses and vegetation around the house.

Mostly done now. After this I'll just subdue the colors in some of the vegetation other than directly in front of the house. I want the front of the farmhouse, and the vegetation right in front of that, with it's bright autumn colors, to be the primary focal point in the painting.

After this one I just made the changes I mentioned above, to finish with the painting in the next blog post.

October Light

I've painted more than one painting of our farmhouse in New Brunswick, Canada. For example, this one which one of the first paintings I did up in Canada, during the first year that I had taken up pastel, and this one, of the early evening. But I have never done one with fall colors. I was at the farm this past October to see some fall colors, and took quiet a few photos as well, so decided last night I just had to do a painting, and I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out. It's a subject near and dear to my heart But I think this is my favorite of all my farm paintings so far! It's done on 9x12 Art Spectrum.

One-Hour Guitar

I got to my afternoon art class late today. I had to do Receiving for the PSNJ Signature Member show this morning at the marvelously eclectic Design Domaine Gallery in Bernardsville, NJ, and afterwards I went to lunch at The Grain House to talk about some PSNJ business.

So it was about 2:45 by the time I got to my class, giving me only an hour to work. But I used it to try an experiment that I'd had to do in another art class one time - where we had to do still lifes, but were given only an hour to do each one, but were expected to turn out a reasonably complete painting in that one hour. The idea was help you work fast and loose. Since I had only an hour I decided to try that today, and just worked fast to see what I could get accomplished in an hour.

So the end result is not a painting I particularly love or even like, but it was a worthwhile learning tool for this experiment - done on 9x12 cream-colored Canson, smooth side. I think the guitar looks more like a ukulele though, LOL.

White Ibises

Ibises are such unusual looking birds, with their long, curved red beaks. I've been on a "birdy" kick lately with my herons and egrets. I decided to add a few more. This was done on 9x12 Art Spectrum paper. I used a reference photo I took this past December in North Carolina, when a large flock of 11 white ibises came in for a landing right alongside the waterfront where I was going for an early morning walk.

The Guitarist #1

Today I was back in the groove a bit, and more my style, with the life class. Last week's painting was torture, so not "me". But it was an experiment, one that was not every successful! Today I returned to my usual technique and felt much better with it, as did Alex, who admitted he had not been too happy with last week's effort, but was glad to see me back in the groove again this week. This was done on 9x12 Canson, cream colored, smooth side.

Great Egret

Another "birdy" picture. When I was in Florida at Christmastime I put my grandson in the stroller and we went for an early morning walk several days. On one of those walks we came upon this great egret, perched in a tree right over our heads. Such an amazing difference from the starlings and pigeons and house sparrows I see around here, LOL. This was done on a 9x12 sheet of art spectrum.

Snowy Egret

I've been feeling rather "birdy" lately and enjoying doing bird paintings. I've had fun doing the blue heron ones I did lately. I think herons and egrets are such beautiful and graceful birds, so I decided to see if I had any good reference photos of other birds I might paint, since I'm always snapping pictures of birds.

So this is one I did of a snowy egret I saw down in the Bird Island Park in Florida's Ponte Vedra Beach this past Christmastime. This was done on 9x12 sheet of art spectrum paper.

Gail on Guitar

We had a new model in life drawing class this week, and we will have the same model, same pose, for 6 weeks in a row! Eeek, that gets old for me, though some students take a full 4-6 weeks to complete one painting. Anyway, since I have to figure out what to do for 6 weeks I decided to start with what I never do - a full-figure painting. I loved her orange Crocs and wanted to get her feet, so that was the only good way to get them in. Now that they are out of the way I can concentrate on other areas in other weeks.

This is done on 9x12 Canson paper, smooth side. I hate doing a full-figure drawing or painting on such a small sheet, but can't really work larger. I have no space to store anything larger and need to downside anyway. As a result I don't really like this one - too fiddly to work so small. But it's all a learning and growing experience. :-)

Year of the Rabbit

We're having nasty weather again! I bet art classes will be cancelled tomorrow, based on the weather reports - which will be the third week in a row. I do miss painting with other people. But I decided I would do something on my own since I'm housebound.

My daughter-in-law's parents invited me to their house Saturday evening to celebrate Chinese New Year. Alas, I can't go, as I'm already committed to my annual choir winter party for that same date. My usual social calendar - nothing for months on end, and then several things for the same date. :-)

Anyway, I understand it's the year of the rabbit this year, so I decided I would paint a rabbit, and ended up with this painting, which is an amalgam of two photos I took last summer at the Morris Canal Park in Clifton, NJ.

A Taste of Honey

Some time ago I painted a picture of a bee sitting on a purple coneflower, which I blogged about here. My sister is a fan of bees and beekeeping, and liked it so much I gave it to her as a gift. After a couple of my paintings had been rejected from juried shows she kept saying I should have entered the bee painting, as she was sure it would be accepted.

However, 1) I had already given it as a gift, so didn't want to take it back to enter, and 2) there was a small rip in the paper which is hardly noticeable, but which I felt a judge might notice. But the more I thought about it the more I decided to do *another* painting from the same reference, and the above painting is the result.

And sure enough, I entered it into the annual show of the West Essex Art Association, and the receiving and judging was today, and it got accepted!

But so much depends on the judge after all. You were allowed to enter two works into the West Essex show, and the second painting I entered, The Old Farm Pantry, was accepted also. This is the very painting that got rejected at the PSNJ juried show in 2009, and which prompted my sister to say I should have entered the bee painting instead. But today they both got accepted. :-)

Blue Heron at Dawn

I love Great Blue Herons. I've been away on vacation for a couple weeks, with no art supplies with me, so my pastels have not been touched since mid-December. But I had a lovely time in Jacksonville, FL, spending Christmas with my son, daughter-in-law, and 15-month-old grandson. It was chilly early in my visit, with temps down in the 20s at night, and even light snow flurries the day after Christmas. But it warmed up as time went on, and reached up into the low 70s by my last couple days there.

My little grandson woke up every morning about 6:30 AM and would come into my room to visit me, so those last couple days I put him in his stroller and took him for an early morning walk around their apartment complex, which surrounds a small lake. I always enjoyed seeing what birds might be at the lake, and the early morning was a great time to see herons and egrets. We saw this great blue backlit by the rising sun, and I just knew I wanted to paint him.

I got a chuckle when I realized that he is not my first Great Blue Heron painting. I did this blue heron painting just recently from a photo I took up in Canada back in October. Though my first one was this one from two years ago, where you can barely see that there is a bird, let alone its species, LOL.

Fake Fruit

LOL, this is sort of "I did it just to do it" sort of paintings, not one of those I especially love! But I went to art class last night and was feeling blah and uninspired. I've been doing a lot of landscapes from photo references I've taken lately, and I enjoy that - but was also feeling an urge to do something from life, though no special idea of what.

But as I set up my easel I saw Christina had various objects sitting on the ledge running along one side of the room, one being a bowl filled with fake fruit, and behind it a bowl containing a plant of some sort. It was not a formal still life setup by any means. But it was right there in front of me, so for fun I decided to incorporate the two into a picture, and this is what I did, on my usual 9x12 Art Spectrum. Not so exciting a picture, but it was fun to do.

Autumn Glories

It's December now and winter is coming. The trees are mostly bare, but back in October, when I drove home from Canada, the autumn was at its height, with glorious trees in fiery reds, flaming oranges, vibrant yellows... It was a marvelous ride, and a wonderful autumn. I kept seeing vast vistas of trees that I wanted to photograph, but it was not an easy thing to do when you're zooming along a highway. :-)

But I saw this bright red-orange tree beside a little stream in Maine, and just *had* to pull over to the side of the highway to take a picture. I can't even tell you where in Maine this is. Best I can do is to say it's somewhere between Bangor and the Canadian border, LOL.

This was done on 9x12 Art Spectrum.