Chickadee #3

I found myself repeating "chicka-dee-dee-dee" while painting this one today. :)

Chickadee #3, 5x7 pastel on brown cardstock

Winter Sparrow

A sweet sparrow today, with a photo reference from Paint my Photo. I love browsing through their collection to find something new to paint!

 

Winter Sparrow, 5x7 pastel on brown paper

Art Workshop #2 Tulips and Oranges

Art Workshop #2 was yesterday and I set up a small still life for all of us to paint from. I loved the colors of the orange and blue together! What a good time we have playing with our colors and discussing all things "artsy"! The first photo shows how I staged the still life.

Ooops, Shirleen! Looks like I snapped the shutter before your beautiful smile was ready!

On the couch is Denver, Shirleen's granddaughter. She's an artist, too, and did a couple watercolor paintings from the still life. The rest of us just take a little longer than she does. :) We also had Rosemary with us, but she had to leave before I remembered to take a few pictures.

The 3 hours we meet together just flies by! Below is the pastel painting I did during our workshop.

 

Tulips and Oranges, 8 x 11 pastel on grey Canson

The Bear and the Butterfly

I found this image on the "Paint my Photo" website and couldn't resist trying to paint this bored zoo bear. I added a little blue butterfly just to give him something to look at! :)

The Bear and the Butterfly, 8x11 pastel on blue paper

New Beginnings Challenge

The monthly art challenge on the Paint My Photo website is to choose a photo from the collection that represents a "new beginning" or memorable event in our lives, and to use only three colors to make the painting. One blue, one yellow, one red, with black and white added as needed.

I chose to use a photo of a duck preparing to cross the road. This duck is kind of like me, hesitating and wondering about crossing the line and moving into the traffic of REAL artists. The second part of the challenge, the limited palette, was the biggest challenge.

With wet media (paint) it's a simple matter of mixing colors together...but with pastels it requires a layering technique, which I really hadn't tried yet. Crossing the Line is my challenge entry using a very limited Primary color palette: "Carnival Red", "Lemon Yellow", and "Iron Blue".

 

Crossing the Line, 7x10 pastel on white Canson

Chickadee 2

Today's chickadee is a little clown hanging upside down from a seed pod.

 

Chickadee 2, 7 x 7 pastel on brown cardstock

Sweet Chickadee

A chickadee is one of my favorite little birds to watch, especially in winter. I'm using someone else's reference today (by permission) to do this charming painting.

 

Sweet Chickadee, 7x7 pastel on brown cardstock

Art Workshop and Winter Colors

Today was the day for our first Art Workshop, which will be held twice a month from now on! The idea is for everyone to work on the same reference (photo, still life, plein air landscape, etc.) using our favorite medium to create the piece. Our workshop group (so far!) has one oil painter, several watercolorists, and one pastelist. (guess who!)

Shirleen presented us with our challenge photos for this meeting. One was the red cardinal, which I did ahead of time, and the other two references were snow scenes. I decided to take a lot of liberties with the reference to make it a whimsical version with lots of color. It only seemed fitting to call it: Winter Colors. :)

 

Winter Colors, 8 x 10 pastel on brown cardstock

 

 

I only thought to take a couple pictures while the group was here. Next time it might be fun to photograph each person's project. In the photo below is Ed, Deni, and Shirleen.

 

 

This photo shows Karen, and Ed again.

 

 

Here are Pegg and Rosemary. We met for three hours this afternoon and the time just flew by. I can hardly wait for the next session!

 

Cardinal Colors

Well, I just couldn't wait. I'm meeting Friday with a group of local artists and we will all work on the same references to paint in our own medium of choice. As preparation we were given three reference photos to consider, but this cardinal couldn't wait. The branches of the trees in the photo reminded me so much of stained glass that I just had to see what it would look like in pastel.  Guess I'll be working on one of the other references when the group meets.

 

Cardinal Colors, 10 x 10 pastel on brown cardstock