Birds on the water pastel painting

Down on the water.

Three birds sat and contemplated the approaching twilight

 Three became five

As the dusk setted

 They pondered, and sat

patiently waiting for the end of the day

the tide, coming or going - it mattered not

abounding, reflecting, refracting,

subdued with luminous light

They wait.

Birds on water. pastel. 10.5 x 14.5"

A pastel painting that was going to be an oil, but I started it lateish last night 

and decided instead to pump up the music, and with my last piece of sanded paper,

throw some pastels around (no, not literally!)

Happy PPF!  (Paint Party Friday)

(Love your comments!)

Lime tree in pastel experiment

The Great Lime Tree pastel painting experiment commences.

I thought for Jenn's Artist Playroom challenge #30 - Botanical, I would paint my lime tree.

Great idea.  

Its accessable (on my patio), there is great light today, and I have about an hour or so before life calls me back to the mundane (grocery shopping or the troops WILL revolt!)

I did a quick pencil sketch to get my hand in. O.K. so far

Then I started.

hmmm I only have Monte Marte pastel paper left, but decide to give it a go.

Bad idea.  I hate it. It's too textured, and it has no substance to it.  I choose green ( thinking it would be a good idea) and discover I dislike working over the green tint.

But I persevere... Here's what it looks like at the end of stage 1:

Yucko... the soft blue for the sky turns a puce shade no matter what I try

and the green for the grass is vile.

So - when in doubt (and desperation) Attack!

I paint it with rubbing alcohol, add more pastel, and dubious quantities of spray fixative...

end of stage 2 it looks like this:

at end of stage 2 of the experiment

 

I am a little more happy with it... but not entirely.  So onto stage 3...

My plans for the next stage: overnight under some heavy books to get the crinkle out of the paper,

then maybe some gesso, or acryllic paint, adding some collage elements?  I'll have to mount it onto some heavier stock paper before proceeding anyway...

Heaven only knows... but it can't get any worse!

I have decided a couple of things...

1. Don't skimp on good paper - it's just NOT worth it! :-)

2. if something seems to fail - 

learn as much from the process as possible... what happens if I...??? You've got nothing to loose at this point so make the most of it!

Secondly:  I will make my best effort to participate in...Blogtoberfest!

As it is a countdown now to my 2nd Blogiversary, I have been wondering - so what do I do?

There seems to be many options out there in blogsville

But I need it simple, easy, and concise!

So - joining a month long blog celebration seemed appropriate! 

The first post by Kat @ I Saw You Dancing, included a list of suggestions for setting an intention for the month, such as:

I want to try and blog every day for 31 days.
I want to check out new blogs and meet like minded souls.
I have this creative project and I want to use this as an opportunity to stay accountable, get some feedback and get it finished!
I have no fixed plan, I'm just looking forward to seeing what happens. I'm open to surprises!

Can I set my intention as, "All of the above" ???
haha - but I don't really want to blog every day... so this will require some thinking!

I was  much happier with these recent efforts, look at them, please, rather than this woeful lime tree!

watercolour illustration...

 

watercolour and pen sketch...

Linking to:   artist playroom
Love your comments! :-)

Cheeky Galahs

These cheeky and jolly galahs visit the park adjacent to our home every afternoon.  I love their colours!  Such an iconic Australian native bird.

Galah. 5 x 7" pastel, on pastel card. $55.00 signed with mat.

Getting back in the groove....

End of week 1 back in the studio, and I have these to show...

A pen and wash sketch from a photo I took last year. Quick, easy and a fun way to get back into creative motion... and to get things rolling I am trying out a few of my art supplies, to try and narrow down if I have a favourite, and I thought the easiest way to do that would be to start small!

5" x 7" - pastel on MiTeints Tex card.   Canelands 1.  $55 signed with mat

A scene so familiar to me - the canefields outside Bundaberg, Queensland.  A simple photo while driving past of a lonely farmhouse. (Although there are no windows or doors - I just double checked!  Maybe they are all on the other side?)

5 " x 7". Watercolour. Elliot Heads.  $55 with mat.

Another very familiar scene from last year - the georgeous river mouth at Elliot Heads, just south of Bundaberg.  ( The camera has washed this out a little)

I have really enjoyed working small.  They take a fraction of the time, I can do them with a small easle at my desk ( thus saving my legs as I can sit down), and it was less intimidating than jumping into something bigger.

Next I have to figure out 1. how to price these teeny gems, and 2. how to make them available for purchase :-)    Followed by an oil and then acryllic.  I am trying to see which medium I prefer... although so far I like them all!

Reserved.

Update 24/8/2012 - pricing done!

Painting sideways

Something novel to try.   The next time you are drawing or painting from a photograph, try turning your image upside down, or sideways.  It forces you to look at the image completely differently.  I had a interesting photo of a pond, that I thought would make a nice basis for an abstract, so I turned it sideways, and then proceeded to paint, using pastels, the colours and lines that I saw, without any regard for making it 'real'.  To my complete surprise, when I turned it back the 'right' way - I discovered this...   and I really love the luminosity pastel gives the water.

This was an interesting experiment, and one that I will probably repeat.  I wonder if it will also work with faces too?

Although I am on holidays, it has been so cold and miserable weather I havn't ventured much into the studio.    However we are getting quotes to replace the two garage doors with glass windows and a glass sliding door - which face north / north west - which means a lot more natural light coming in - they will really make a difference in here.   During holidays we are always up late, sleeping in, doing other things, that I havn't been able to find a good routine for being creative. 

Pastel Portrait Fun

Tonight:  Pastel Portrait. Sting & George Michael. Real Loud. Fun. And lots of capitals.  

Why is it now that my kids are teens they are telling me to turn down my music? 

Modern Woman?

I went to the Queensland Art Gallery on the weekend, specifically to see the exhibition of Modern Woman - Drawings from the Musee D'Orsay, Paris.  It featured drawings and pastels of famous artists like Degas, Renoir, La'Trec, and  Mary Cassett plus many more.  It was a feast for the eyes.  What made this time period, 1850- 1918 so interesting is because this was the first time drawing came into it's own as a serious art, and not just a precursor for a painting or sculpture.   Of course I loved the Degas, and all the pastel works!
Interesting also is the change in how women were depicted - and there is a distinct move from women being objects and possessions, to now being depicted in their everyday states, and all class of women.  Peasants feeding the chickens in the village street, laundry women, and ballet dancers stretching are also often depicted from unusual vantage points.

After walking through the exhibition of course we had to go to the gallery shop and buy the book.   But I also found Fruits, the book of Japanese street fashion.  I saw a regional exhibition of these photos last year - and it was so entertaining, refreshing, engaging that when I saw the book marked down 50% - well I had to get that also!  Japanese street fashion is worth googling, to see what happens when an area of young people - teens through to twentys, decide to go against the flow and dress very, very, differently.  

There is perhaps a whole metaphor here about progression from being an object depicted on canvas, and of women being and dressing as they like, where their choices of dress became the artform.  Where art is seen, and viewed, in the everyday, rather than the everyday captured and then framed behind glass. 

work in progress - secret code

Untitled. Charcoal & pastel on tinted paper. 2012

A work in progress, and number four in a series of works from same inspiration.

I was sooooo scared of working on a tinted background support.  But now I find I really, really like it. Really.
And don't you love how artists can get away with saying, 'work in progress' - almost like its code for 'well, I'm not sure yet if this is finished or not!' - well it is my code anyways!  I almost want to take the intense orange right to the head, and I just as equally don't... so it will have to sit there for a week while I see what develops!

Face symmetry

Faces are not perfectly symmetrical; It is funny how different a face looks when you only look at half of it.    Playing with drawing faces from memory, is fun as there is no pressure for them to actually look like anyone in particular!  Soft pastels are still on the art table...and this little face popped up in my art journal.  I had to spray a little fixative a few times - and I'll have to see how it holds up being in an art journal as I did put a few layers on... but I love how easy it is to build a depth of colour and shading with pastels.

pastel rescue

 

So...

what can you do with two sick kids, and you feel like your getting it too?   draw a cute face of course!

oh so hoping everyone gets well soon!

Pastel loves watercolour

A further step along my road of exploring pastels, watercolours and faces. (Can't really call them portraits as entirely from my imagination at present!

A pencil sketch was painted with clear gesso ( pastel primer).  When dry I used water colour on the face.  Then I added pastel to the background, which I then painted over with a wet paintbrush - the pure pigment turns into the loveliest watercolour!  When dry I went over with layers of pastel ( stick and pencil form) to highlight details.  I really like the effects!  I think in a journal or altered book a little, light spray of fixative would be O.K....

It's only Paint and Paper

 

Small experimental pastel painting of one of  our local visiting birds - a pink galah. 

Small - because I was experimenting...

Experimental - because after watching a course on pastel painting I wanted to put into practice with minimal risk factor!

I learned - it is harder working smaller with pastels - next time don't skimp on paper :-)

Best advice I've heard about a fear of 'wasting' materials?  "it's only paint and paper!"

Now off to try on a altered book page...

Rain Fower

 The start of a new altered book page - starts with a blank, unprepared page... then the addition of pastels, which I painted with rubbing alcohol to transform from dusty smudgyness, to painterly colour...

The in-between step I forgot to photograph!  I added more pastel over this base layer, then I lightly dabbed on clear gesso.  This seals the pastel, AND provides a surface with lots of texture and tooth.
I then started working into the basic idea I had of clouds, then a face popped up, then a flower... and this is what come into life...

I used some pastel pencils and mainly prisma colour pencils to work over the clear gesso - the prismas are so soft they just melted into the clear gesso.

I love how the underneath page still floats through to the surface, and the transparent layers, and the colours...the perfect way to spend an hour!

Pastel for terracotta

I finished this pastel painting the other day, and fine tuned it yesterday.  I am still exploring with this media - but must say I am enjoying it.  I have had this large, old terracotta pot for about 25 years!  It has travelled with me from house to house, and at each move I have to decide whether to keep it or not because it is useless to plant in because of the narrow top.   But I really like the shape, and the texure, so I keep it as a garden 'feature'.  I worked from the photo I took the other morning, and squinted a lot as I was trying to capture that early morning haze. 

Untitled Response

Untitled. Image copyright L. Richardson, 2011

Why this?  The chapter title that I had left to see is 'Heartache'.  She's not happy, and she's not sad, but she has lived life.  Essentially an image spoke to me, and I drew my response to her.  I drew her for my mum, and for her mum, and for the Aunty's in my heritage who have lived a life of heartache I'll never know.   I have a richness of Australian heritage, that I wanted to share, and express that in some way encompassed some of our family's stories from the depression era and the Stolen Generation.  Amazing stories of courage and love and yes hurt and pain too.


Mixed media ( pastel, pencil, acrylic, over mixed media)