Yellow Flower Pastel Painting

"Yellow Flowers" 6x6 inches, pastel on board.

Available on Etsy

I love these happy little yellow flowers - loosely based on the coreopsis in my garden, but...  just loosely.  

:)

"Sunflowers in the Painted Hills", an original pastel painting.

On a recent trip to the Painted Hills with my family, we came across these sunflowers.  I loved the colors in the background!

"Sunflowers in the Painted Hills", pastel on board, 11x14
Available through Etsy

Here are a few progress photos:

 A watercolor underpainting over the initial sketch.  Those watercolor underpaintings are so fun!

The first layers of pastel - I was trying to get the feeling of the background hill while still keeping it really abstract and relaxed.

A close up of starting work on the sunflower.  I am using a sheet of glassine to keep from smearing the pastel around while I am working!

Here are the completed sunflowers "floating in space".  I wanted the foreground and the background to be out of focus, and the sunflowers to be the only crisp part.  I had to do a bit of thinking about how to approach the foreground grasses.

Thanks for looking!  :)

A Rose of Friendship ~ original pastel painting

I had something wonderful happen yesterday when I was photographing this painting.  I took it outside to get the best light, and propped it up on the windowsill.  While I was taking the photos, I heard a hummingbird behind me.  I turned to look at him, and he flew up closer and hovered in front of my painting!  He obviously liked the bright colors, but it made me really happy that it caught his attention, and he looked just like an appreciative art lover at a gallery.  I wish that I would have had the presence of mind to get a photo before he flew away!

This painting was made in honor of my friend +Bruni Steinberger in Germany.  Bruni has been such a great friend who I was lucky to meet not long after joining Google+.  She takes wonderful photographs of the beautiful city that she lives in, and I got the reference photo for this painting from her collection of flower photos.

A Rose of Friendship, pastel on board, 8x10 inches
Available through Etsy

I did something with this painting that I haven't done in a while...  a watercolor underpainting!  I had forgotten how much fun they can be.  I like the random quality of watercolor - it sometimes makes patterns that I wouldn't have expected.  I was happy with the way that the upper right side turned out, and so I decided to leave it as it was, without any pastel.  The underpainting enables me to use a lighter hand with my pastel application, since I don't have to add as many layers in order to cover up every bit of white board that is peeking through, to get the saturated look that I like.

Here are a few progress photos:

Here is what the watercolor underpainting looked like before I started adding pastel.

I started adding the pastel, working in general from upper left to bottom right to keep my hands clean...

Thanks for looking!  

New Pastel Painting of a Plumeria

Today I am posting a painting that was inspired by the beautiful plumeria photos of my friend +Vanida Boonphitak. Vanida lives in Thailand, and she takes wonderful photos of the scenery, flowers, and buildings there.

Plumeria, 8x10 inches, pastel on board
Available through Etsy

Here are a few progress photos....

In my enthusiasm to get started, I made a silly mistake here and put those bright colors in the lower right hand corner...  since I am right handed, I had to cover the lower right hand side with wax paper while I did the rest of the painting.  :)

At this point, I noticed that my colors were getting a bit dull, and I had to brighten them up again!

I had a lot of fun with this background!

Thanks for looking!  :)

An update on the building of my art studio, with progress photos ~and~ my latest painting!

Here is my latest painting of a coreopsis flower and a maple leaf~

Pastel on board, 6x6 inches

Available through Etsy

Also - we have made some good progress on my art studio, and I though it was time to post a few photos!

Just getting started...

Getting ready for the floor...

Sub-floor and heating vents are in...

The first wall goes up...

The view out of one of the windows...  not bad!  :)

Wall number two...

Wall number three is up and number four is on it's way...

Those huge windows (7x7 feet!)  in the front and back were free!  We got them as salvage from my husband's work - they were remodeling and were going to throw them out!  We have been storing them for over a year - and I am happy to see them in place.  They will be wonderful!

Then the rafters for the roof...



After receiving my commission from JoAnn Ross for a book cover, we decided to add a little loft in the back of the studio.  It will be just big enough for a small mattress - perfect for reading art books - or a quick nap!  We have named it "JoAnn's addition".    :)
In the photo above, my husband is standing on the floor of the loft while he works on the roof.

The inside of the studio with my lovely, foggy view!



You can see the floor of the loft and the hole on the right side to climb up into it in this photo.  I am so very excited for it to be done!  My husband has been so wonderful fitting in working on it whenever he has a little time.  I know he will be happy to finish the roof and get out of the rain to start working inside!  :)

Pastel Painting Demonstration of a Foxglove

"Foxglove", Pastel on board, 5x7
Available through Etsy

I'm pretty happy with this one!  It came together more easily for me than usual.  I took a couple of pictures of it as a work in progress:

First I did a sketch on green Ampersand Pastelbord.  I really like this surface because it can take as many layers of pastel as you could ever need, and it is very tough.  I have had times where a painting wasn't going well, and I just took it to the sink, rinsed it off, let it dry, and started over!  I work different ways, depending on the painting, but this time I wanted to focus on the detail of the flowers first, as I intended to keep the background abstract.  First I put in a light layer of dark blue where appropriate, to remind me of where the darkest shadows would be.  Then I started working on the flowers and stem, moving from top to bottom.  I was trying to get a good amount of detail, while still looking "painterly".  

I was having a hard time getting the color that I wanted, and I found that starting with a very bright pink background, and then layering on cream, with touches of peach, green, blue and yellow worked for me.  Sometimes you get better colors with layering, than if you just pick the right color out of your box!  The green background was fun to work on as it really made the flowers jump out as I went along.

I paid special attention to where the sun was hitting the flowers, and tried to give a bit more emphasis to the ones in the lower center and left, as they were my focal point.  Here is a closeup:

When I had finished the flowers, I decided that they needed to be warmed up a bit, and went over them here and there with yellow and peach, and just a bit more of that bright pink.  Putting in the background was fun, and the only things to pay attention to were keeping a good balance of the colors that I was using, and keeping the dust from the dark colors off of my pale flowers!  A few touch ups and I was done!

Cherry Blossoms, 8x10, Pastel on Board

This was a challenge for a pastel group that I belong to - I enjoyed it more than I thought I would!  Cherry blossoms are one of the most cheerful signs of spring.  Currently on auction through Daily Paintworks.

Pansy and Friends, Pastel on board, 5x7

I love pansies - who doesn't?  I am eagerly awaiting Spring, and it put me in the mood for flowers!
Available through Daily Paint Works.