Making the Most Out of a Photo

 While living 'country side' I often traveled country roads - looking for resource material for painting.  This painting has been done twice before. Why?  I loved the challenge of creating believable subjects.

Max and Major are two Belgian Draft horses - belonging to a local farmer - nearby where we lived in Kansas.  Having new Pan Pastels I have been looking for a subject - near and dear to my heart, and here was a photo that I have used before.  How could I improve it?  How could I paint it so I felt I had done my best rendition of the mood I felt when I took the photo?  Here is the final piece.  I loved how it turned out.  Kansas skies can be very colorless and bright, so one thing I did was created a believable sky beyond what I caught in the photo.

"Headed for the Barn"

9" x 12" Pan Pastel and pastel pencils

on Uart sanded paper

New Pastel Painting

"In the Still of the Forest Night"

Pan Pastel and pastel pencils

9" x 12"

on Uart 600 grit charcoal sanded paper

(deer image reference - compliments of Diane Epstein)

Merry Christmas and have a healthy New Year!

 

The Learning Curve

Pan Pastels have always been a mystery to me.  I bought a set of 'darker' hues some time ago.  I have tried them, without much success. Fast forward to having the use of an online class through Ivy Newport/Studioworks,  a class using Pan Pastels by Dawn Vander Stoep.  

I painted along with her with a pastel of an owl, almost entirely done with Pan Pastels. DH helped me buy 'deeper into the supplies' (early birthday present) which I needed for success with this medium. I now have a set of 40 pans. more about Pan Pastels here   Key to this medium for ME, is the small 'sponges and applicators' that are specially made for 'laying down' the pastel.

OK, now I get it.  You just needed to show me.  The first piece below is my paint-along with Dawn,  The second is my '2nd ever' piece with mostly Pan Pastels. As with most mediums, it will take practice and diligence to improve, but I have LOTS of time as....DH and I are suffering from a massive head cold/sinus infection, we are hunkered down and I believe at this rate, it will continue on into next week. Ho ho ho - Merry Christmas. Good thing I just went to Costco recently and bought the big pack of tissues.  Two COVID tests show that we are 'negative' for Coronavirus.

Today it is mega windy and cold and snowy here at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mtns - perfect day to be in the studio (sniff sniff)!!

paint along with Dawn Vander Stoep

"Sangres Cottontail Night"

pan pastel 

6" x 8"

Restocking my Online Shops

 It's that GIFT GIVING TIME of YEAR.   'My self-imposed break' is over.  Time to restock some art/paintings in my Etsy and Daily Paintworks online shops.  Check them out, as I add to them daily.  Some special pricing is happening right now..as the studio is overflowing with art and it's time to move it on.

ETSY SHOP link is here.

DAILY PAINTWORKS link is here. 

Art Submitted for Last Show of the Year

The gallery that I choose to show my work in, is in my town. This submission of my art is for the last show of the season. The gallery typically closes for the big part of the winter. This show is the Holiday Show and runs until Dec. 20. 

I submitted 5 pieces for the show. See them below...

"Emu" in marker and pen and ink

"Raven" in marker and pen and ink

"Trail Pros" in pastel on velour paper

"Lion Fish" in oil paint

"Long Horns" in pastel on Kitty Wallis sandpaper

 The idea for this show is to submit smaller pieces (under 400 sq inches) therefore - more in the affordable 'holiday gift giving range'. There are 26 artists who have 70 paintings, art photographs, and stained glass pieces hanging on the first floor walls of the 2 story building. There is also art hanging on the second floor.  The art represented there is done by the gallery volunteers - of which I am one.  For working the 'gallery salesfloor'  at several times during the season, you are given a space to hang your art for sale.  Come by and see the show if you are in southern Colorado! The gallery is open 11AM to 4PM Thurs through Mon. It's called 3rd Street Gallery of which houses the Sangres Art Guild 

near the junction of Hwy 69 and Main St., in Westcliffe, Co. (13000 Hwy 69)

Visit from a Great Horned Owl

We are inundated with cottontailed rabbits this year, so seeing this visitor (Great Horned Owl) last night was a welcome sight! It stayed around for several minutes, long enough for me to see it balancing on my deck post and then for me to get 'up close and personal' with my iPhone camera through the storm door glass. (First two photos are through the window screen. It was having a heck of a time sitting on the post, guess those long talons kept it from having a grip.)

Smoky Living

Seems like each year we have lived in this area, we are visited by smoky skies, this time of year.  This year is no different.  We have enjoyed a very wet Spring and Summer - wettest in a long time.  EVERYTHING is growing.  Wildflowers are prolific!  No fires nearby, but the winds bring the smoke down through the valleys that lead to this area - and the front range air quality is beyond bad.  Hope some rainy weather helps put out some of these fires or at least helps the firefighters get a grip on what is burning.  Climate change is a happening thing.

Pet Portrait Commission Completed

 

Portrait for Emily V.  - these are the 7 pets that have been a part of my client's mom and dad's family during their family's lifetime.  It is painted in acrylic and measures 20" x 30".  I will make a floater frame - for which the material is arriving today.  I have enjoyed putting this together - 

it has turned out perfectly! 

I will be adding the 'up close and personal' photos of each pet below to show detail of the animal as soon as my email or iPhone communicate with one another - always some kind of issue it seems with iPhone these days.  

This was such a huge challenge for me to paint!  I have angsted over it - but in the end it turned out exactly as I hoped it would.  Many hours, lots of painstaking planning occurred on this one.  The photos, as you can believe, were not as helpful as I wanted..many were old photos of pets who have passed.  Of the 7, only three are still with the family.  

The black and tan dog, Casey - 3rd from left, is a three legged dog and the 

client wanted that reflected in the painting. 

She lost her limb to cancer, was given only 6 mos to live 

and has lived on for 2 years already. 

What a nice gift of life.

NOW, I can't wait to move on with some weaving and some more acrylic painting.  The studio awaits!

Truffle

Calvin

Casey

Chili

Wyatt

Reese and Flickerfoot

Thanks for stopping by.  Feel free to leave a comment.

First Layer of Commission Portrait(s)

 

First layer (very rough) almost there - working on the likeness and playing with the sizes and those crazy striped cats on the right - they were sisters.

The cats are bigger than normal in my painting - but having much smaller faces in this composition

just didn't do it for me. Using acrylic paint on 20" x 30" canvas.

Seven LOVING souls - I can feel their specialness, each one. Some or maybe 

one is still here, the rest have passed.

(My easel is backed up to a window, that is the light

shining through the unpainted canvas.)

Decision, decisions, always in the works - what to do with the background when I get there?

The Beginnings of a Commissioned Piece

 A few months ago I was approached online with a commission request. A possible client wanted me to paint her parents 'past' and present pets in ONE painting.  I thought, 'cool, I can do a few in a painting' - great challenge.  Lo and behold, it is 7 animals.  SEVEN...seven!  4 dogs and 3 cats.  OK.  I can do this.  Other life happenings have been filling the void..have had the photos of these pets for a couple of months.

AND..other commission work, matting and framing for a show, family issues, ME taking care of the homestead for the winter have taken precedent - not excuses - but many artists who work at home, will tell you LIFE gets in the way, very often.  

Yesterday I plowed through.  After working most of the day - my first sketch of the composition was completed.  Honestly, I was thinking - where do I start?  What have I done?  Questioning myself if I could do this and why did I take it on?  

I have to give some of the credit to the many places online that I get my 'nudging'.  I do these tasks daily - I listen to Danny Gregory's Podcasts, watch Ali Cavanaugh paint beautiful watercolors on Patreon, listen and watch Kim Casebeer and Kami Mendlik paint on Instagram - I get a world of encouragement just by watching and listening to others. (It's like that instrumental crescendo in "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles is playing all the while - in my head.)   

AND finally - there - voila - STEP ONE - completed (charcoal on newsprint).  Now I can go forward with getting the plan down on canvas and begin painting.  Only in one case, do I see any of these lovies side by side for comparative SIZE reference.  The client supplied me with who is the biggest and suggestions from there, that there is a three legged pooch that she wants shown (black and tan, up front). Most have passed, so the photos that she has, are the photos I will use.  Some photos show what I need, some do not..I have to make it up a little with research and artistic license - scary to say the least.  I am making the cats larger than they should be, but putting much smaller cats with dogs - bugs me.  Watercolor was my first choice on Aquabord but substrate choice of a bigger size calls for acrylic on stretched/cradled edge canvas.  It will be 20" x 30".  Sometimes DOING art seems so hard.  Why?  I hang a sign over my easel and refer to it so much these days..."It's Supposed to be Fun".  And IT IS, once I get past the 'heebie jeebies' of that first step.  If I can DO this one - I will have proved to myself, I can do anything.

 Quick photo, bad lighting

The Sun in the Morning, but OH That Moon at Night!

 For two evenings past - I missed the opportunity to photograph the rising full moon..but not last night.  Had my tripod at the ready and the camera waiting for the moonshine to peak over the Wet Mountains. The moonlight is so bright as it travels through the night.  

Spring? Not yet...

Living in the Colorado high country after the first day of Spring has come and gone is like flipping the light switch ON and the OFF and then ON and then OFF.  And with each sunrise you don't know what to expect...dry deck and stairs or ICY deck and stairs once out the door.  Not to worry, after I shattered my left ankle in a slip on ice out the door several years back, I always 'cleat up'.

I love that days are like this.  Lots of layers of clothing to start out the day - then all the way to short sleeves by mid afternoon, only to layer back up later.  

For the past two years I have been involved in Project Feeder Watch/Cornell Ornithology Labs, a program that counts birds. By signing up you spend an hour or two each week observing birds and their behaviors and report them to the website.  

This past couple of weeks with weather changing we have had some new visitors to the feeders, as well as some antics by the frequenting birds.  Crows are a part of who visits often for the fact that I fill up the suet feeders which they command being in charge of - pushing/displacing the Magpies to the ground or away.  Hundreds of House Finches fly in every hour or two to make a mess of my deck - with their feeding frenzy. but I love watching them.  When they all come in - it's like a scene from the movie "The Birds".

Crows made these wing marks in the snow near my front deck, upon closer examination, there were also mouse prints in the snow.  I would assume the mice were scrambling from the field to the underneath of the deck where they frequent..also going under the house.  However, crows won on many counts it appears. I put 'redneck' mousetraps under the house - and catch up to 20 mice a bucket over a period of several weeks..but I will let the crows take care of it anytime they want to.

A New Beginning

 OK, pandemic has interrupted my life LONG ENOUGH!  I am making a pact with myself, ART will come back to life now.  I have never experienced such a 'downer' of a time - the daily irritation of poor leadership and corruption in this country is gone.  I have my second Moderna vaccine under my belt by a month.  Art venues are opening back up for the season. My 'trigger thumb' is getting well from that long break I have taken.  No excuses, no holds barred - it's time!

I entered my first show for the season at the gallery.  It is referred to as 'the calendar show' .  An outside artist judges the art and chooses 13 suitable pieces to be printed into the yearly 'Sangres Art Guild' calendar. I didn't enter my pieces for that purpose, I entered them, just as a way of getting back INTO the groove.  They are a few of last year's 30 in 30 Inktober/pen and ink pieces (see my sidebar for a postcard I made of them) but new to gallery EYES.  Looking forward to a new beginning.  More to come here on the blog, too! 

Just finished and am shipping out today a pastel commission dog portrait.  This was Bella - her owner's said goodbye to her earlier this winter.

Bella - 10" x 14"

The three archival ink pen drawings I entered in the calendar show.