Day 42 "Plum Orchard Sunshine"

I'm returning again to sunny Cumberland Island, GA. The October sunlight was strong and warm but had the slant of late fall which creates good shadows even in the middle of the day.
These gray February days in Lexington are getting very boring and I'm longing for spring so I can get outside and do some on location drawings.

"Plum Orchard's Sunshine" 12" x 8" on Wallis Belgium Mist sanded paper

Day 41 "Plum Orchard"

"It's never to late to be what you might have been." George Elliott
Plum Orchard is a beautiful mansion once belonging to the Carnegie family on Cumberland Island, GA which is now a National Seashore. We visited the island in October and stayed with a friend who was volunteering for 2 months with the Park Service. It's a wonderful, pristine island full of sunlight and dramatic shadows. No vehicles are allowed except for the Park Service and the island is free of the commercialization of the other Georgia Islands. Thanks for a great adventure, Deb.
This drawing is probably the best one I've done since starting this project. I knew what I wanted to capture and why when I took the photograph. Then I carefully composed it in the camera before snapping. The tiny digital camera screen is a big help to see the composition and contrast of your photo which translates into a good drawing. 
I think I'll keep this one and maybe turn it into an oil painting.

"Plum Orchard" 12"x8" on Wallis Belgium Mist sanded paper

Day 40 "Meadow Morning"

"Pray for Peace." me
As I listen to reports of violence against the citizens of Libya by Gadhafi it's hard to write about art when other happenings are so horrible. It reminds me of being an art student in 1970 and asking my teacher, "what is the relevance of painting a nude when soldiers are dying in Vietnam?" She said, "You have to answer that for yourself."
Art is my solace, comforter and a window from my soul to the world and from the world into my soul.
God created this beautiful world; mankind is slowly destroying it and my heart weeps. 
I try to put peace and beauty foremost in my work to bring that feeling of peace to myself and others. We whiz through life at top speed but we need to slow down, breathe and look around us. Notice light coming through the trees, the color of the grasses as the sun sets, how blue is the sky in autumn, there's purple in the shadows.

"Meadow Morning" 8"x12" pastel on Uart paper with an oil wash as the underpainting

Day 39 "Quinault River Edge"

"True life is lived when tiny changes occur." Leo Tolstoy
Trying "Quinault River's Edge" by following the photoshop improvement of the previous pastel. It seems to have too many points of interest. I need to decide what's the most important part and emphasize that with value change.
I think I need to take out some of the pines and make the sunlit strip more interesting, soften the light blue color of the bleached out fallen logs.
My students and I have observed that a finished pastel drawing seems to improve when we wrap a piece of wax paper over the drawing for safe transportation home. I think the wax paper reduces the details and the large masses are emphasized. Glassine paper is a safer paper for wrapping a pastel, but wax paper is convenient. Just don't use wax paper on a drawing in the summer when the heat of a car can melt the wax onto your drawing.

"Quinault River's Edge" 8" x 12" on Wallis Belgium Mist sanded paper

Day 38 "Goofy Chew"

Sometimes I get bored with landscapes and switch to fun animal portraits that border on cartoons. The day I attended the Louisville Zoo the giraffes were enjoying the warm summer sun and seemed to be posing for my camera shots. I've used this reference photo about 4 times and each time I get a little bit different look for "Goofy."

"Goofy Chew" 12" x 8" on LaCarte sanded paper

Day 37 "Quinault River"

"There is a wideness in God's mercy, like a wideness of the sea," hymn
"Quinault River" is a study and as it is now, definitely not complete. I think the lower left corner has some merit and could become the drawing - dropping the other details. Working from photographs has the drawback of having too much information and it's easy to fall into the lull of copying the photograph instead of using it as reference to compose a much better image.

"Quinault River, WA" 12" x 8" on Uart sanded paper with an oil wash

"Quinault River" detail

If I use this lower part, the light green strip of sunlight would have to be moved away from the middle of the image but I do think it shows promise.

"Quinault River 3"

In Photoshop Elements I moved the green strip of sunlight, added a few more logs and upright tree trunks. I think "Quinault River 3" will work better.

Day 36 "Today's Demo"

I'm too tired to find a good quote for today's blog.
Last night was the Gallery Hop and it was a resounding success with over 500 visitors - more than Artist's Attic normally gets. It was a beautifully warm evening especially after a miserable winter and everyone was out and about.
Then today I taught my workshop from 9-4 which was also a great class, but now I"m beat.
Here's the demo from today. I took the drawing that I posted yesterday and we redrew it in class - everyone follows along which may sound very uncreative but it's a great way to instruct on the basics of how to deal with the material.
I also asked my repeating students who took my beginners class in January to find their favorite artist in Pastel Journal Magazine and explain to the class what drew (ha-ha) them to this work. That gave them something to do while I explained the basics of soft pastels and textured paper to the beginners and it was a great way to introduce other artists' work to the class and the magic of expressive pastel.
You'll notice that this "Buckeye Meadow" is loose and incomplete but it's more important for me to help my students than to have a totally finished piece at the end of the day.

"Buckeye Meadow 2"