two charcoal studies

I drove over to Haverill this morning for a figure and still life set up with the Bradford Artists. The figure drawing is charcoal on 18x24 Rives' off white paper and the still life is charcoal on 8x10 MiTeints white pastel paper. It's so nice to get together with a group of artists and forget about the economy and real life in general for a couple of hours. Even with the frustration and difficulty of the work, it's very calming at the same time. Two artists commented that they were amused to see me going back and forth from one subject to another. One of them gave me a nickname: Speedy. Whenever the model took a break, I hurried over to the still life. When the model resumed his pose, I ran back to my easel. There was some wonderful work being done in this group, as usual.
After lunch I continued up the highway into Newburyport to see if the ice floes were floating down the river yet, but no luck. I hope I don't miss them again this year.

Stolen

This 6"x6" oil painting has been stolen from my exhibit at the Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Groton, MA. I know I'll never see it again but I thought I may as well alert my readers. I took my smaller works down, and another artist has removed all of her works. It's a shame that an incident such as this spoils the enjoyment for others.

apple

The main challenge here was to paint the part of the apple in shadow while retaining the round shape. I like this painting, but I would like more contrast in the apple. After the paint dries, I am going to try adding a green glaze on the shadow side. I did learn during this painting to add the complementary color instead of merely using a darker red to indicate the apple in shadow.

I used small swatches of color on paper to match to the actual objects and that was a huge help. It's a technique that I can use outdoors as well. A color isolator (i.e. a piece of cardboard with a 1.5" hole in it) is an aid that I need to start using regularly. Sometimes it can be tricky to decide what color something is when there is so much going on in the scene- especially the influence of other colors.

I read that while painting en plein air, Corot was in the habit of throwing a black cloth and another of white right on the ground before him and to do the same farther away. The cloths helped him to judge values.

onion

I painted an onion for my painting session with the Bradford artists but I wasn't happy with it so I started over at home. I like this one much better. I am about to begin two paintings of an apple: one using the grisaille technique and the other wet on wet painted onto a bright yellow background.

Gallery Dreams

I just discovered a website which will place any image in a virtual museum gallery http://www.dumpr.net/museumr.php This is an almost-finished pastel still life for the PSNH members' show. I should really start to think about completing it. The actual painting is only 19"x20"

Radish

This cheery little radish was such a joy to paint. After a very hectic week with not much time for my art, it was sublime to sit down in my studio and know that I could spend all day on this if I wanted to. The part that gave me the most trouble was the very fine root. I painted it twice, then finally substituted the radish to complete that part of the painting. It still took two more tries but had fun all the while because I find the little threads winding around it fascinating.

pastel portrait

I thought I'd post a few photos showing the progression of my newest pastel. It's on a bright white Rives paper which I had never worked on before. It is a very soft paper; pleasant to work on but just a little too fuzzy. I had to periodically spray fixative between layers of pastel, and used mostly Sennelier and Great American.

I just purchased some new boards for oil paintings so hopefully I'll have some to post this weekend. It certainly is drab outside so I am not sure what I'll end up painting.