Pisgah Pike - Three Studies

"He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet."  -Joseph Joubert

"The well laid plans of mice and men." I don't know who said that but it explains my "Pastel a Day" concept falling flat after just one day. So tonight I'm posting 3 images to make up for my laziness last night.

I recently watched a wonderful video by Colleen Howe who talks about preplanning your pastel and we all know how important thumbnail studies are but so few of us do them. These 3 pastels were created after I did color thumbnails which are creatively freeing. As an artists you have only time invested because no one is going to see them, so you can be more free to experiment with color. I actually like the little studies even more than these 3 but I'll have to post the studies tomorrow.

Which one do you like better?

"Pisgah Pike 3" pastel on Wallis sanded paper

"Pisgah Pike 2" 8" x 11" pastel on Wallis sanded paper

"Pisgah Pike 1" 8" x 12" pastel on sanded paper

55 days of New Pastels

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life" Pablo Picasso

I've used this quote before but I love it so much that it's a good start for my next run at "Pastel a Day".  For the next 55 days, which is how many days I have before "Kentucky Crafted The Market", I'll create and post a pastel each day. I did 60 days last winter and it was a great motivator to explore and produce.

This is a scene from Shaker Village which I have reworked again because it seemed too dark when I showed it at the last art fair. Sometimes it takes framing a piece and then standing back and just looking at it for awhile to make decisions about it's future. Too many times I've overworked a piece to be disappointed that I filled up the texture of this paper which I create using Art Spectrum's pastel primer. The great thing about this paper is that if I overwork the paper I can wipe off the too heavy application of pastel with a baby wipe and go all the way back to the color pastel primer and then start more carefully adding layers of color.

"Shaker Fields Dusk 1" 16"x20" matted on sanded paper created with pastel primer

Still LIfe set up

For my class tomorrow we're working on a still life set up and here's an idea of how to create an environment for light and shadow to illuminate your still life.

Take a box large enough to display your still life objects. cut a hole in the box for your personal light source to shine through the hole. Find your personal light source. I used a small flexible arm reading light.

Below are also 3 different still lifes using fruit. And the final shot is the box set up with light source

Still Life #1 - 5 pieces of fruit but a boring arrangement

Still Life #2 has a more interesting arrangement of fruit and objects as well as light and shadow

Still life #3-I like the light and shadow of the box sides and the shadow from the fruit

Still life set up with flexible arm reading light and medium size box

Merced River Reflections

This is the second demonstration of water reflections which involves moving water. My art is not a photo realistic but more of an impressionistic so my approach to moving water is to try to grab the feeling of rushing white water but not every detail.

Step 1 I draw in the shapes and block in some of the darks with the pastel pencil. Notice the light lines dividing the paper into 1/3s. This approach is an aid in drawing and composition.

Step 1- Draw in basic shapes. A good time for drawing corrections if needed

Step 2-Start blocking in darks and lights

Step 3 - Continue blocking in shapes but because this water is moving I am adding more horizontal strokes earlier in the drawing process

Step 4 - Push the color to get some expression of the scene and not just copy nature

Step 5 - Add the final light areas of moving water using expressive strokes of color

Yosemite Valley Reflections

"Have no fear of perfection, you'll never reach it. "  Salvador Dali 
This blog is for my Tuesday night pastel class. Hi class!
I thought it would be fun to post the step by step for our class, "How do we paint water?"
I read once that the least you do to water the better. In other words, try to get down the essence of water and then quit messing with it. I like to create a vertical stoke of color because reflections are a large part of what makes water look wet. Those shapes are a reflection of the vertical objects from above the water.
I know it's a bit complicated drawing - lots of shapes - but I'm excited about my trip to Yosemite so I just couldn't help but create an pastel from my trip. In class we may take just a part of the image and work on that.

So lets' start with drawing in the basic shapes. (Wolf Kahn doesn't like drawing in the basic shapes but that's for another lesson"

Step 1 -Draw in the basic shapes

Step 2 - Add local color

Step 3 - Block in reflected color.

Step 4 - Add more vertical strokes of color. That which is dark above will be reflected a bit lighter and the light colors will be reflected a bit darker creating reflected color which is closer in value.

Step 5 - Add lighter areas to water and horizontal strokes to depict movement

Plein air on gray

If you've been following my blogs you know I'm not excited about a gray day. I prefer strong light and shadow but today our Plein Air Painters of the Bluegrass group met at a friend's farm in Nonesuch, KY and the day was gray. I went mostly to photograph her llamas but Dan, who really appreciates tonal values, talked me into trying the more subtle view of the fall colors.

"Subtle Fall" 12" x 8" pastel on Wallis sanded paper

This next one started out to be just a very small study of the upper part of the vista but since I had more paper on the bottom I just kept recording the foreground texture. I'd like to go back tomorrow and just do studies of the abstract texture of the foreground weeds but it's suppose to rain and I'm o.k. with gray but not with rain.

"Fall Layers" 12" x 8" pastel on Wallis sanded paper

I like the textured bramble better than the vista which brings up another topic.
Why do we work outdoors?
1) to finish an actual piece recording all the visual input of the moment.
2) to study a scene whether it's the color, shapes, or values
3) to practice working quickly to record the feeling, not just the information.

Following the setting sun

...everything is vague, confused, and Nature grows drowsy. The fresh evening air sighs among the leaves - the birds, these voices of the flowers are saying their evening prayer. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Shaker Village is even more special as the sun sets and the fields grow orange-golden. Plein air painting is even more demanding when the sun sinks so quickly. So today, I knew exactly where I wanted to set up and I knew what I wanted to capture, but doing that is always more difficult in reality then in my imagination.
This is a series of sketches that I hope to use as reference for a large pastel, however the more I study the images the more I think that trying to incorporate all will be too much information and not a clear focus. It may be best to develop 2 pastels, one of the sycamore and the other of the orange field.

"Sycamore and Fence" plein air sketch

"Chasing the setting sun1" plein air sketch

"Chasing the setting sun2" plein air sketch