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

Hayrolls

"The best laid plans of mice and man." ??
I don't know who said that. It's such a common saying that the author has faded in the glare of an overused saying. But my point is that no matter how many times I tell my students, "Don't put the point of interest smack in the middle of the drawing" here it is, right in the middle. Using another overused saying "make lemonade out of lemons," I named this piece "Front and Center" to beat my critics to the punch. Yes, I know it's right in the middle, and I I still like it  :-)
Maybe some creative cropping would help?

"Front and Center" 12" x 8" plein air pastel on sanded paper

Let's try a square?The 2 hayrolls if viewed as a unit are still in the middle but the large one is more to the right side and in this version the hayrolls are unmistakenly the point of interest.

"Front and Center, Square Up" 

I like viewing the images small. I can see design flaws more easily, like the strong diagonal of the fence row needs to be counter balanced by a stronger angle to the blue mountains. I'll try some creative photoshopping.

Yes, I like that better, but now I have to get back to matting/framing for the Woodland Art Fair, in Woodland Park, Lexington, KY this weekend.

Rectangle or square

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. " Pablo Picasso
I've drawn this little outbuilding before but from a photograph. This one was created en plein air this week. 
But what I want to talk about is how convenient working with pastels and pastel paper is compared to dealing with a stretched canvas.
While preparing this image for tonight's blog I accidently cropped it as a square and I like it much better. With pastel paper all I have to do is just cut the paper before matting and framing but if it was an oil painting on stretcher bars then it would just have to stay as is.
What do you think? Which format do you like better?

"Shaker Outbuilding" 12" x 8" pastel

"Shaker Outbuilding Two"  8" x 8" pastel