Practice with pastels...

I received 3 dozen roses for my 35th wedding anniversary, and I wanted to try and draw them.  I tried colored pencil first, but that didn’t work out as well as I would have liked, but when I tried the pastels, I was much happier.  I’m never sure though, if I want a pastel drawing to be loose or nicely detailed... maybe I wind up with something in the middle.

                                                    Pastel on 6x6 inch pastelmat paper.

Spring flower sketches

Cyclamen, pencil, watercolor, colored pencil

I've been enjoying sketching these spring flowers, and looking forward to Spring!  The cyclamen plant came from the store, but the forsythia were cut from a bush in my yard, not yet in bloom.  I put the twigs in water, and after a few days the flowers bloomed!

I've also started an oil painting of a small bouquet of both flowers together. 

Forsythia sketch, pencil and colored pendil

colored pencil Cyclamen

Star of Bethlehem botanical drawing, Colored pencil. 5x7 in.

What a difference adjusting the white balance on the camera makes!  I retook this picture, since I realized how blue the previous one looked.  Instead of just replacing the blueish pic with this one, I thought I'd just add the new one so I could compare the two.

Colored pencils on white bristol board... 5x7 inches

I've been drawing quite a bit lately, and spending time using colored pencils to do some botanical drawings.  I love flowers, and it seems, for me, it's easier to draw them than to paint them.

I had bought a bouquet of flowers just before Christmas from the grocery store.  It had white mums, red carnations, a red rose, and this flower that I had never seen before... and it hadn't bloomed yet.  Over the last few days more and more of the little star shaped flowers have been opening and I wondered what the name of it was.  I finally looked it up, and it is called the Star of Bethlehem!  Just right for a Christmas bouquet!

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas!

Terra cotta colored Canford paper, and pastel pencil...

I had ordered this terra cotta shade of paper quite a while ago, thinking it would be a little bit of a duller color, but when I received it, the color seemed so vibrant I set it aside not sure what to use it for.  I took it out today and cut it into some smaller pieces to play around with.  After using some charcoal and white chalk on it, I decided it was a very nice middle value to work on, and the color didn't seem to matter very much.  Then I decided to draw something more detailed on it, and copied this face from a Botticelli painting online... I used some pastel pencils for some color and I really loved how nicely the pencils worked on the paper.  I didn't want to stop drawing on it!  It is Canford paper, by Daler Rowney.  I have another color, champagne, in the heavier card version.  Either one is nice, light watercolor works nicely on it, pen and ink also.graphite, charcoal, pastel pencil, color pencil... In my opinion, it has a very nice surface to work on.  

I haven't been doing much artwork lately, I'm going to have cataract surgery in about a month, so in the meantime, I've been spending my art making time pretty much just sketching, doodling, I figure I'll wait til I can see clearer to do any nicer drawings and paintings.  

Drawing some little bits of nature....

I put together an assortment of iris petals, a dandelion, lily of the valley, and a little yellow flower, and drew them carefully with a pencil on Bristol paper.  I liked how it looked just with the pencil, but I couldn't help but color it in.  I used some watercolor, and color pencil.. But mostly watercolor... I'm not sure, again, whether I like it better before I colored it, or after.  

I could have worked on it a bit more, but I decided to stop here.

Thank you for taking the time to check out my artwork! 

Violets

This is a little pencil drawing I did today of a sprig of violets I pulled up out of my yard.  After I was  finished  drawing, I decided to color it in with some watercolor.  I took a picture before and 

after... I don't know which one I like better.

Daffodil sketches

I can't help but want to draw these beautiful  sunny daffodils.... Sketches from life, in pencil, ( and one colored with watercolor)

Value studies... Lemon and tiny daffodil..

I draw almost every day, so I'm surprised to see I haven't posted any drawings in about a month!  Well, here is a little study I started yesterday, and finished today...  A charcoal and pastel drawing on gray Canson pastel paper. It's good to practice creating values, it's so easy to forget just how many different steps there are between black and white. I'm trying to keep this in mind, and also trying to keep my values separate, and clearly different from each other. 

Coffee, Cookies and Chocolate!

Another sketch today, of coffee, windmill cookies, a sugar cookie and a Neuhaus chocolate truffle. 
On Strathmore toned paper, with Derwent Drawing pencils in "Terracotta", "Ivory black", "Venetian red", and "Chocolate" of course!  plus  white chalk pencil. 

A page of pears!

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a nice holiday season!
I enjoyed the holidays, but now I am glad to have some free time to myself, to relax and do some drawing.  I love my Strathmore toned drawing paper!  I used a sepia Conte pencil, and General's white charcoal pencil, which looked very nice by itself, but I couldn't help to color some in further with a few Conte pastel pencils.
These are small forelle pears.  I only had two of them, I just repositioned and redrew them over a few times.

Pastel drawings

I've been having fun playing with my pastels.  Here are a couple of small sketches I did.   The persimmon and blue bottle is done on canson paper,  I made a similar oil painting of that one too.  The oak leaf,cranberries and persimmon is on Strathmore tan paper, which I would also like to try a painting of.

Experimenting with pastels

 

I've started taking a pastel class, and so at home I've been experimenting with different papers and techniques to see which I like best. 

 So far I've tried Sennelier La Carte paper, it's a nice heavy paper, and comes in a variety of nice colors, but the surface coating will desolve if wet, just a drop of water will ruin it.  

I have a little pad of Sennelier "l'Esprit du Pastel". It's a nice little spiral pad with a sheet of glassine between each page, but the lined texture is a bit distracting for me.  As an experiment, I tried coating it with some Golden Acrylic ground for pastels.  This is a thick solution that dries clear, containing a fine grit that you can brush on any surface to give it a sanded texture.  I liked working on this paper better with the ground applied. 

I also tried Colorfix sanded paper,  lots of nice colors, it can be used with wet techniques, and the texture holds the pastel nicely.  

Mi-Tientes Touch paper has a texture I don't care for, but comes in many colors just like the Canson Mi-tientes paper, which I like, I prefer the smoother side to work on.  

Uart sanded paper is the one I like best so far, I used a wash of red pastel wet with water and a brush, and when dry drew over it, that worked out nicely.  It only comes in one color, a light sand color, but it's possible to tone it yourself any color you want, and comes in many different 'grits' I tried the 400, 600, and 800, they are all nice to work on.

The pastels I've been using are a collection I've acquired over the years of Rembrandt, and Sennelier soft pastels, NuPastel sticks, CarbOthello, and Conte pastel pencils.

I'm no expert, but thought I would share my opinions, I hope you might find it helpful:)

Thanks for visiting my blog today!

Figure drawing

Still learning and enjoying the challenge of figure drawing... The drawings are done on 18x 24 paper

I'm having a few issues with my computer, so I am using my iPad to post this, hopefully it appears ok on the blog page.

Thanks for taking the time to stop and view my artwork!

Drawing and experimenting with egg tempera

From time to time I come across paintings online that are done with egg tempera.  I have read about how to go about making it, but I have never tried it until now.  Following instructions online,  I used tubed gouache paint in place of powdered pigment,  and the egg yolk and water mixture to create the egg tempera paint.  I really liked the velvety smoothness of the paint, and love the feel of it as I painted it on.  The paper I used is a cream colored Stonehenge paper.  I think I would like this manner of painting, as it is not painting in broad strokes or pushing paint around... it is more linear, like drawing, swiftly making lines with it, cross hatching or scumbling... it dries very quickly, and then it's ready for another layer.  As I read about it more, I see that it would take much practice, and patience, but the luminous quality of the paint makes it appealing to do.  The only drawback would be mixing fresh egg medium, and mixing the paint each painting session.  It dries on the palette quickly too... But it is so much prettier than the mat gouache paint.  

Here is my quick little study of marigolds....