Bottle glass

I love the glass bottles that sit on the window ledge here at the farm. I hesitate to paint them though, I can never seem to draw them symmetrically. But I decided to try today, on another sheet of 6x8 Art Spectrum. But as I suspected the bottles came out all lopsided and asymmetric.

Too late I recalled the advice of one art teacher - fold a piece of paper in half, draw half the bottle, then cut it out, open it up, and you have a perfect symmetrical shape. However I forgot that advice until after I'd already painted my lumpy shapes. Oh well, as the same teacher also said "If your bottles come out uneven just tell people it's hand-blown glass." LOL

Llamas at Jolicure

Well another little 6x8 30-minute painting. I went on a ride today to do some bird-watching at the Beaubassin Field Station on the Tantramar Marsh, and I took some of the back rounds through Jolicure and Point de Bute. I saw these two llamas in the field as I passed and had to snap and take a few pictures of them. Good thing they were fenced as they guy did his best to come right up to my car and check me out!

At any rate I thought it would be fun for a quick painting - again on Art Spectrum, my old set of NuPastels.

Life Drawing at Tidnish Bridge Art Gallery

I was out birding much of the day yesterday (despite on and off heavy rains!) and no quick paintings at home, but I knew in the evening I'd be going to the art gallery in Tidnish Bridge, Nova Scotia. By early evening the rains had stopped. The gallery hosts life drawing classes every Monday evening from 7-9 PM and the fee is reasonable - the model's fee ($40) divided by the number of participants. That worked out to a $7 fee last night which was great!

I felt rusty of course as I had not done any life drawing since I was up here last summer at Tidnish Bridge, and the human figure is so unforgiving. However it's always fun and good practice. Lots of quick (30 second, 2 minute, 5 minute, 10 minute) poses, mostly gestural for the shorter ones, then for the last hour two 25-minute poses. Those are the two here. I didn't bring any pastels with me, but did have some colored pencils and got to add a touch of color. It was fun, and I hope to attend next week also.

Maximum 60

It was a raw, rainy, chilly and windy day here in maritime Canada today. The heavy rains kept knocking out my satellite internet connection. But right now the rains have stopped although it's still windy and overcast, but the connection is alive again.

You'd think I would have all day to paint, but I got involved in a good book, and worked on a jigsaw puzzle, but in the afternoon decided to paint something. I do live this new "work small, work often" mantra though, as this is another only 6x8 on Colourfix, and I only spent about 20 minutes on it - so not exactly polished.

But at least it gave me the satisfaction of feeling I had done *something*. Done from a photo of course. Even on nice days the mosquitoes are too fierce for plein air. This is from a scene just past Cape Tormentine, where the road curves down and around the bend, and as you get to the bend you have a great view of the Confederation Bridge to Prince Edward Island.

Hummingbird

 I think hummingbirds are so adorable. When I come up here to Maritime Canada every summer one of the first things I do is put up my hummingbird feeder, and the hummers usually discover it that very same day, or the next day at the very latest. It's so funny to watch they perching on the power lines also as they are so tiny.

Well I'm still working tiny so a hummer seemed like a good subject. This is done on a 6x8 Art Spectrum piece using my old 48-color NuPastel set, which is all I brought up here with me in the interests of packing light. :-)

 My original hummingbird feeder broke last summer, but I brought a new one up this year!

Flo explores the beach

I'm still enjoying working small! I'm back up in Atlantic Canada for a few weeks, and the other day my dog Flo and I went for a walk on our beach. She loved exploring and I took a bunch of photos of her. This is done from one of the photos - on a 6x8 piece of Art Spectrum Colourfix sanded paper using my old set of NuPastels.

Gold Head Branch Two

Pastels are still and always will be my first love, but they have a couple related drawbacks that make me think about other mediums from time to time.
1) They never "dry" like oil or acrylic - good in that you can always go back to them to touch up or make changes, but bad in that they must always be protected
2) Which means they have to be framed under glass ,which adds to the cost, the weight, and the pain of framing.

And I have no interest in oils which don't suit my impatient painting style - but I keep *toying* with the idea of using acrylics. The problem is that I love the idea of being able to use acrylics, but I never feel happy while I'm actually doing it, and usually not happy with results which I always feel look like kindergarten works.

But today I decided to try again using the same reference photo I did in pastel back at the end of May. While oils dry far too slowly for me the acrylics often dry far too fast, so I used some Golden Retarder in the paints for this painting, and that actually seemed rather helpful.

Though I'm still not happy with this, but not as unhappy as I sometimes am, LOL. This is done on an 8x10 gallery-wrapped canvas.

Castaway

Here's another tiny one, just 5x7, done on Ampersand Pastel Board. I did this on Saturday with the First Coast Pastel Society at their June paint-out. It was a hot and muggy day, not my type of day to be outdoors, so I found a shady spot to set up without worrying about what I would paint, and then just painted what I saw for the sake of doing something.

So not crazy about this, but still enjoy working small, and it was fun to be with a few other die-hard pastelists, and to share a picnic lunch with them afterwards.

Gold Head Branch

This is another one of my small paintings, again just a 6x9, done on Art Spectrum Colourfix with NuPastels. Again I spent a little less than 30 minutes on it. I'm enjoying working in this small size in smaller amounts of time, as it's less daunting to find the time in my schedule to do it.

This is taken from a photo of my that I took at Gold Head Branch State Park early one morning, when I went out there to do some bird watching. I was completely smitten by the *intense* orange of the landscape that the angle of the sun gave everything. The light was so beautiful I just had to take some photos. I enjoyed doing this in small format which I'm finding really so much fun.

In many of my art classes and workshops I was constantly urged to work "Bigger! bigger!" I've been told that "big art" is what sells. But I feel that surely there must be a place in the world for smaller pieces as well. Surely I'm not the only person who lives in a small house and has no wall space for anything but small intimate works of art? I've seen "big art" pieces that I love and that are very striking, but since:
1) I have no possible wall space for anything like that, and
2) "Big art" is generally priced way beyond my means
I just look and pass them by. But I *have* bought a few small pieces of original art done by friends - size and price just right.

So for the time being I'll continue to work small. 

Jean's Lemons (two)

I'm still trying to keep up with the "work small, work often" philosophy of the book Daily Painting by Carol Marine. It's helping me get a little bit more into the groove to do small paintings I need spend only 20-30 minutes on, not a daunting amount of time!

I do wish I could get better photos - the purple under the lemons is not so intense in real life, maybe I'll try again tomorrow in better lighting and redo this whole post with a new photo. But this was done last night in about 20 minutes, again a 6x9 but done on Art Spectrum Colourfix paper, primarily NuPastels. I do enjoy working small, it's rather fun, and you can whip something out quite quickly. 

My Back Yard

I'm still trying to get into the groove of working small and working more often, as I seem to keep finding things that keep me away from the easel. If I only need 30 minutes for a small painting I'm likely to do it more often!

So that's what I did today - 30 minutes sitting in my sunroom and looking out over my back yard and pond. This was again done on a small 6x9 piece of Wallis paper that I had sitting around, NuPastels. A size like 6x9 means I can spend a mere 30 minutes or so and actually get something done. Not that I'm very crazy about this painting, but at least I did something! Trying to get back into the groove. I started losing the light since I started latish, so had to stop. Will have to see if I think I can salvage it tomorrow perhaps.

Jean's lemons again

Okay, I made a few minor changes on this one because there were a couple niggly little things that bothered me, but not too much. I rather liked it as it was except for the tiny nits, and I didn't want to get too overworked or too bogged down in any sort of details. I wanted it to stay loose. So I'm considering this one "done" though a shame the colors don't photograph as nicely as I would like.

Jean's Lemons (one)

I have been away from my easel for FAR too long - so much of the rest of life seems to constantly get in the way, but today I decided that had to stop. I didn't have my grandson for the afternoon as I usually do on Fridays, so the whole afternoon was suddenly empty. As it was I still frittered most of it away and only spent 30 minutes on this painting, but at least I DID it! This is still rough and probably not done, just in the "let's wait a bit and then take a look stage". But I did it! I sat down at my easel.

I have a lot of people to thank whose various efforts led me to this afternoon:

1) Marie Marfia - who donated the book "Daily Painting" by Carol Marine to the First Coast Pastel Society lending library.
2) Kay Deuben - our FCPS librarian, who let me be the first person to check the book out.
3) Lyn Asselta pastel painter, who gave us such a wonderful mini-workshop last Saturday at our FCPS meeting - all about using a limited palette with complementary colors.
4) and Jean Rolke, who gave me the lemons that served as my models!

I chose a limited complementary palette using blue/purple and yellow/orange. Just a handful of pastels, mostly all Nupastels, on a small 6x9 sheet of Wallis paper that I happened to have. I include a few shots I took of the process along the way, demonstrating that my paintings always look "ugly" for the longest time before they finally begin to come together at some point along the line. grin emoticon Happy painting everyone. I need to set aside time to do this MUCH MORE OFTEN NOW.

 Ugly stage 1

 Ugly stage 2

Ugly stage 3

Finlay

I'm still enjoying playing with acrylics. This is a little 8x10 I did with acrylics of my granddaughter Finlay - combining a couple photos from a day we spent at Fort Beausejour in New Brunswick, Canada. I finished it up fairly quickly as a Christmas gift for my son and daughter-in-law.

Misty Morning Pond with Heron

This painting has been sitting on my easel for over a month now. I kept thinking it needed something else. I finally got it into my head that what it needed was a heron standing on the edge of the pond near the tree, so this was what did this evening. Now I see that the heron appears to be close to dead center. Oh well, now it's sitting on my easel again to stare at and thing about - 11x14 Richeson paper and various pastels, mostly my Mount Vision "thunderstorm grays" set.

I'm a Little Teapot

Today was the day to turn in our painted boxes to the Jacksonville Artists Guild  for their "Cat's Meow" show, to raise money for First Coast No More Homeless Pets. The panels will be on display at the Reddi-Arts "Gallery 1037" In January, and of course for sale there.

Since the paintings were due today I finally sat down and painted mine yesterday - a little different since I did a cat teapot rather than an actual cat! But I figured there would be plenty of variety. I didn't get to see all of them since I didn't stay for the holiday party but just dropped off my painting and ran, but here's a sample of some of the other cat art that had already been delivered.

Julbock

Yesterday we had out third annual holiday brunch of the First Coast Pastel Society. As has become our custom we enjoy a nice meal together, and then spend a couple hours working on still lifes that have been set up. At the link above to our group blog you can see what other members worked on. The painting above is the one I did. 

It's a painting of a traditional Scandinavian "julbock" or Christmas Goat. As one of our members, of Scandinavian descent, put it: "up in Scandinavia there are more reindeer than we know what to do with, but instead we have a Christmas goat." :-)

Anyway, this was my take on the still life I chose to work on, as I decided a Goat was more fun than just one more vase of flowers. I had a fun time with my other pastelists, and look forward to an exciting 2015 with them.

Misty morning pond

At the September meeting of the First Coast Pastel Society we had a presentation by Karl Kelly of Mount Vision Pastels, from Tampa, FL. Karl had a mouth-watering array of over 400 colors of pastels available, as well as various boxed sets of pastels. The one I loved was the "Thunderstorm Gray" set, so I had to buy that one - as well as about  different open stock colors that appealed to me.

I just needed a subject to try out all the wonderful colors in that set! I finally pulled out a photo today that was taken right in my own back yard on a very gray and misty morning with a hint of fog rising from the pond.

So this was done entirely with the colors from the Thunderstorm Gray set as well as one open stock dark green. Mount Vision pastels are all hand-made by Karl, and are big and chunky, so no way to get any serious details with them. They also are fairly fragile as I found when one rolled off the table and shattered into 100 pieces!

This is done on a 11x14 sheet of Richeson sanded paper, sort of an ocher color.

Minis at the Arboretum

Yesterday the First Coast Pastel Society had our first plein air outing of the fall season at the Jacksonville Arboretum. We had about 14-15 folks turn out to paint, and the weather was glorious - our first sunny day in weeks I think.

I still don't feel very comfortable with plein air though I go because I love the fun and camaraderie with the group. I bought a 3-pack of Ampersand pastelmat 5x7 boards and thought they were just a perfect size to use for plein air, so I did the two pictures above.

I don't care for either one of them, LOL. but I still had a lovely day chatting with fellow pastelists, and a nice picnic lunch together.

In other news both of my 16x20 acrylics survived the jurying process and are in the "16x20" show at Reddi-Arts. Opening reception this Sunday, should be fun.

Floridian Fall

This is the second 16x20 acrylic I did for the "16x20" show at Reddi-Arts. Acrylics are still a huge struggle but I'm having more fun with them than I expected. Water, as always, is a killer for me regardless of medium. LOL.

However this scene is right here in the local shopping center in Fleming Island, a largish retention pond just behind and a little to the west of the local Wal-Mart - not exactly out in the pristine wilderness. But I have loved these trees ever since I loved to Florida in 2011 as their pretty colors give me a taste of fall arriving.

And it really does seem to be arriving now. Lovely cool and breezy when I walked my dog an hour ago, and supposed to drop down into the 40s tonight. Woo hoo, I love it.

St. Augustine Lighthouse

We had receiving for an art show this morning where every piece had to be 16x20. That is the image size, not counting mat, not counting frame, etc. The actual image had to be exactly 16x20. I never paint that large with my pastels. I work 9x12 or 11x14, and I buy frames in bulk in only those sizes. I didn't *want* to have to go out and buy a large sheet to work on and a large frame, . 

So I decided to try acrylics once again. Michael's had gallery-wrapped 16x20 frames on sale for about $8.60 each so the price was certainly right and no frame required! I was allowed to enter two in the show so I decided to go for it. This is the first one I completed.

[sigh] I still feel like a kindergarten kid when it comes to trying to use acrylics.

Beaubassin

When I was in Canada this summer my neighbor told me I should visit the Beaubassin Research Station located on the Tantramar Marsh along the shores of the Bay of Fundy, and used mainly for research on wetlands and waterfowl.

I'm an avid birder, and I've always loved salt marshes. The Tantramar has long been a favorite place of mine, but I had never seen the section where the Beaubassin station is located - a large white house located far out on the marsh. I went out there a number of times and loved looking at the marsh and the sky and the various birds.

It just seemed like a natural for a painting of some sort, so this is the one I came up with, of the long road going through the marsh out to the Research Station standing all alone and far from anyone.

Done on 9x12 Art Spectrum Colourfix, various pastels.

Maritime morning

Every summer I take my pastels up to Canada with me and VOW I will do lots of painting, and yet I never seem to get as much done as I think I would. This year was a very low year and I only did TWO.

Actually three I suppose, all on Art Spectrum Colourfix, 9x12. However the first one was just so completely dreadful that after an hour or two I just rushed into the kitchen and rinsed everything off under the sink! I was left with a sheet of Colourfix paper that had stains of various colors on it faintly, so I began playing with pastels to enhance some of the colors to see what happened, then enhancing some of the shapes as the colors took place.

So this is what I ended up with, very different from my usual style and way of working!

Tidnish Life sessions

 Once again I enjoyed going to the Life Drawing sessions at the Tidnish Bridge Art Gallery on Monday evenings, 7-9 PM.

 The format was the same as in previous years, working from a life model. We first started each session with a series of 30 second poses.

 Thirty seconds causes you to have to work fast! Figure drawing is not my forte, and is very unforgiving, as opposed to a tree, LOL. But I always figure drawing from life is a valuable experience.

 From 30 seconds we moved on to a series of 60-second poses.

 After that we moved up to 2-minute poses.

 Two minutes felt like quite a luxury after the initial 30 seconds!

 After that we moved to 5-minute poses though I don't seem to have any available here.

 The last hour we finished with a couple 20-minute poses, and then often a 15-minute pose at the end.

I still don't consider myself a figure painter! But I definitely enjoy going to these sessions! Looking forward to next year with Bob Morouney.

Jacksonville Zoo project opening

In May the Jacksonville Artists Guild had their zoo fundraiser opening at the zoo itself. What a fun evening it was to have the zoo all to ourselves, and to see all the amazing artwork the members contributed.

 Between all the members who participated we had enough artwork to make four large amazing blocks up on the way, 105 pieces in all. It was awesome seeing what everyone did.

 My elephant piece is in the second column from the right, second painting from the top. During the event the pieces were also available for purchase via silent auction, and someone bought my elephant! Yay, $100 raised for the zoo.

 There were so many awesome works of art I was tempted to buy one myself, but could not decide on a particular one.

I had two pieces in this block of work - the blue giraffe in the rightmost column, second from the bottom. In the same row, second from the left, are my three pink flamingos. I guess I was not that original in subject matter, LOL. Giraffes, elephants and flamingos all seemed to be pretty popular among the artists.