Day 17 "Pisgah Pike"

Pisgah Pike is part of the Kentucky Scenic Highway system. It runs from Versailles Road through to Frankfort Pike and is truly a beautiful country road. 
My favorite spot is this corner beside the Pisgah Presbyterian Church. I've photographed and drawn it many time including this newest one first using an oil wash on the sanded paper before applying the pastel. 

"Pisgah Corner Early Morning"   8" x 12"   $285

Day 16 Corrections

Sunday is the day of rest, but pastels are so quick that I can make a correction in 15 minutes - that's not work. If the medium was oil paints-that would be another issue. The cloud pastel needed correcting.
I added color to the left side of the cloud and soften the top left corner which was too similar to the bottom of the cloud. And I took out the rainbow and added a few more lighter reflections in the water. I have to be careful with changes because too much can take the energy out of the piece.

"Magic Cloud"

Day 15 Olympia National Park

Following full disclosure principles, I have to admit I didn't create this pastel today because I taught a pastel workshop at Artists Attic-BTW a really fun group of people who produced some amazing pieces. So I didn't have time to create my "Pastel A Day" today, but this piece was created this past week. 
Some of the steps to create the workshop image, "Knob Meadow Evening" are posted in my pastel lessons blog at http://mcdonaldpastellessons.blogspot.com
And if you're reading my facebook page you'll see that my buddy and amazing writer/poet, Tanya Tyler, has composed a couple of poems to accompany some of my drawings, but not this yet. :-)

"Olympia National Park's Hoh River"   8" x 12"   pastel on textured pastel paper

Day 14 Magic Clouds

When I worked as a graphic designer more times than I like to remember, typos or graphic problems didn't show up until the piece was printed. Ugh! 
So as I look at today's piece after photographing it, I think, "why did I make the classic mistake of putting the cloud smack dab in the the middle of the drawing?" As my students often say when asked that same question, "Because that's the way it was in the photograph." I'm suppose to know better, but there it is! Too bad because I like the effect I got by doing an oil wash first on Uart sanded paper and then applying the pastel. This will be a good candidate for a redo.

"Magic Cloud"  8" x 12" pastel on sanded Uart paper

And the next time I"ll leave out the rainbow which is next to impossible to draw with pigment - rainbows are pure light!

Day 13 "Sunset"

Snow again! I long for the summer days of drifting in my kayak at Jacobson Park in Lexington. "Sunset" is from a photograph that I took from the kayak which is why the horizon line is low and flat. The cloud was so beautiful and dramatic that there was no need to manipulate the colors for the pastel drawing. 

"Sunset"     8" x 12"     pastel     $285

Day 12 Olympia National Park

Continuing the travelogue of my 2010 trips is a waterfall from Olympia National Park in Washington. This park is one of our nation's largest national parks and the landscape ranges from 6,000 ft. Hurricane Ridge to the Hoh River Valley temperate rain forest to the Pacific coast. My family and I throughly enjoyed our July visit.

"Olympia National Park"   7.5" x 10.5"   pastel  $245

Day 11 West Virginia

 "Art gives you the ability to travel someplace without going anyplace." unknown
Today I'm traveling through my reference photos to West Virginia in search of an image to produce a step by step printout for my pastel workshop on Saturday at Artists Attic. "Knob Meadow Evening" is the highest point on the Marshall farm in Mingo, West Virginia and when I stand on the knob it's feels like the opening sequence of "The Sound of Music."

"Knob Meadow Evening"          8" x 12"           pastel           $285