A WISH FOR YOU

 Wishing YOU and YOURS....

Pattie, Gene and Lukki - 2022

Holiday Time

 These Days - it seems as though the 'time' speeds up, exponentially.  All MY running around and getting holiday plans settled - are done.  Time to sit back and try to enjoy the season. Hope you are able to do so, as well.

"Nutcracker Suite"

9" x 12"

pastel on Canson paper

©Pattie Wall

 H A P P Y   H O L I D A Y S!

Oh, The Breaks Between LIVING

 It's been awhile, not intentional, but needed.  Spent most of this summer and fall DOING and dealing with RV travel.  I will take time to spell it out - later on down the road, but traveling has taken front seat to our aging lives.  "Do it now, or never get to it!", that kind of motto.  

Here are the latest pieces - I am now back at the drawing table and easel.  Just entered three pieces in the Holiday Show at the local gallery - sharing 2 here.

Also rejoined an activity that I love - drawing and painting with others, also through the local gallery.

"Moose and Meece" 

6" x 12"

pastel on Wallis Sanded Pastel Paper

"Young Buck" 

9" x 12"

pastel on Wallis Sanded Pastel Paper

We get together (for now) 2nd Tues of the month. (Me with the glasses middle-background)

Vote for a Title of my pastel of this WOLF

 The fun begins - head on over to my FINE ARTIST Facebook page and select your favorite title.

Pattie Wall - Fine Artist link

Wolf Without a Title

The pastel of the wolf is finished!  I paint so many wild canines - I can't just keep titling them 'Wolf', 'Coyote' or 'Fox' - there is an amazing bunch of suggested titles over at my FACEBOOK artist site.  You can GO THERE - and suggest a title for this and win a notecard print of this piece. You can 'follow' there so you will be able to VOTE in the POLL I will post on Monday! Thanks!

https://www.facebook.com/Pattie-Wall-Fine-Artist-732147303514693

New Pastel/watercolor

 Several years back, I studied this technique online, with artist Tonja Sell   Using handmade stencils and materials that lend themselves to awesome textures in watercolor I worked them into a collage-like arrangement on sanded Uart paper.  

After a day or so of drying, I played around with the orientation. In this case, turning it 180 degrees made it more receptive to my wolf idea.  Then added the beginnings of the face...after these first few beginning strokes, something in me said - leave it this way, but that was too easy.  Going to carry on and see what transpires.

A Blogiversary to Recognize!

It's hard to imagine that I engaged in a 'blogging' space on this date 15 years ago. A MILESTONE in and of itself!  Lots of water under the bridge, changes, and growth since those long ago days.  

We were Kansas residents, at the time I began this blog.  I started it as I wanted a space to communicate with my 'left behind' friends and family to be able to read about our adventure of living in farm country on a farmstead.  I also had a desire to write about and publish my ART PROCESS. And - blogging became a special occasion to JOURNAL. 

Blogging was ONCE a 'have to' for me. Perhaps you have noticed, I am not as active on this space as I once was. 

NOW living back in Colorado and family changes - the necessity for blogging much of the time - has waned - click for more... The ART PROCESS is still a happening event.    It was and IS a way to connect with the 'like minded'  - however, many of those like-mindeds have set their sails and traveled off into other spaces and platforms.  With each passing year, I feel less and less connected through my blog and I get WAY LESS response to what I write.  Are you still out there????

At the present, I am taking a fiercely wonderful online 'marketing course'.  Look for changes in the coming fall months.  I will be launching a NEW website filled with all things ART.  

Stay tuned - for the TBD (To Be Determined) time.

PS There are a few blogs left from those olden and golden days.  Keeping a blog going is likened to 'geeking out'.  I LOVE visiting my fellow 'geeks'.  It takes time to do this writing, but I find there is a plethora of good news out there on blogs, especially from those folks who do ART of some kind or another.  Keep the fire going. even if it's only once in awhile.  HUGS!

52 Years Old

 Click on post to see entire quote...

Dr. Seuss said it right.  

"Unless someone LIKE YOU CARES a whole awful lot,

Nothing is going to get better. It's NOT."

 

Spring Cleaning

 Each year the Sangres Art Guild's local art space, 3rd Street Gallery, in Westcliffe has a seasonal schedule.  Our first show is in May and our last show ends in December. The building that the gallery is situated in, is currently for sale.  So this year, we just don't know what will happen to the space which is currently being graciously donated.  Each year we have a 'spring clean' day and today was the day.  From top to bottom the two gallery floors were made 'spic and span' by the crew in the following photo. It was a work of love and care for our space.  Photo - here it is - do you know which one I am? The first show, the 2023 Calendar Show, will have it's official artist's reception on May 7th.  

  

Lots of LEARNING

 

Since the beginning of COVID, I have been immersing myself in 'learning online' with art courses offered of ALL KINDS.  Determined to revisit, practice and refine a multiplicity of mediums and techniques.  I feel it has been a winner of an undertaking.  These courses have kept me busy in the studio and pushed my nose to the grindstone.  The gains in comfort and ease with materials has me open to DOING LOTS of new and refreshing/replenishing artwork. This piece was done under the guidance of Robert Kelley who is teaching under karabullockart.com.  This is the 6th course I have been absorbed in.  Kara offers stellar and substantial learning opportunities.  

"Frank'" - the above canine - was done in willow and vine charcoal, kneaded eraser (which makes the best marks!), blenders, and cotton balls with charcoal dust.  I have lots of experience with these materials - when I began my art journey (so many years ago), this was pretty much all I used, so this part of my practice is like visiting an old friend. 

These days, working with any DUSTING materials, I wear a mask.  Not a problem, as wearing a mask is a new comfort over the past two years - right?

Moving forward to be more consumed and captivated with this genre.

Staying with the Process II

 An update on the 'wolves' painting, If you have followed my blog at all, you know that wolves are my favorite wild animal.  More on that one later.  This is a large painting in oil.

Detail:

Baking the Pie

Being a part of an online watercolor community 'sets a lofty bar' - however, the learning curve is sky high. (Aligator Watercolor Community with Ali Cavanaugh on Patreon) The bi-weekly challenges are worth the work. They are truly challenging and perhaps in the realm of 'painting I wouldn't normally do'. I am committed and devoting my time to it, all the same. Proficiency with subject and materials is my goal and in the meantime, getting to know others of like-mindedness is refreshing. Challenge for this 2 weeks is "Women in History". I chose Gloria Steinem. Growing up in the days when her activism and message were tenacious, it was a true gift. She was and IS greatly influential to my growth and raising a daughter.

"Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman, It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie, there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie." - Gloria Steinem

(painted with watercolor on QOR treated cradled board 8" x 8" - photo ref is PUBLIC DOMAIN)

Staying with the Process

 While the process is fresh with painting in oil, I started a new painting - 18" x 26", larger than usual.  There will be somewhat of a lesson on this one.  Two of the wolves have white fur in bright sun - and mixing their colors will be challenging. Here goes.  Underpainting blocked in.

BTW - in such a large space I DID 'grid in' the pencil drawing. I learned something new this year  attending a ZOOM meeting with MAPS (Mid-America Pastel Society) - the presenter, pastelist extraordinaire -Christine Ivers, showed a way to GRID diagonally - which I had never seen before and it really works for me!

Taking Time to Explore

 I have been taking several interesting and fun workshops ONLINE in the past few years.  It's a COVID dodge, as well as, time to learn new or refresh older art skills and just have fun. A recent class I found on Kara Bullock Art - was a "Dynamic Still Life" oil painting course by Sarah Sedwick.

I am not a big fan of 'still life' painting.  Perhaps I will be working on that ~ but the jury is still out.

What I took away from this course are all those things I already knew.  The correct way to produce art in oil or any medium for that matter.  I am so accustomed to true Alla Prima painting. In other words, just stepping up to the easel and going for it in one fell swoop. But this process makes more sense to me for serious 'artworking' and always has - I just don't take the time, usually.  Maybe that comes from the fact that I usually paint animals or people - and hoping to make them a true likeness doesn't take a lot of prep for me.

The still life was set-up by the instructor, then quick sketches were made to choose the most pleasing composition. I am not including my sketches - as I don't have photos of them at this time.

After sketching and picking a compositional pleasing one - we did a black and white value study.

I did this one on Arches Oleo oil paint paper - love this stuff! The onions look like garlic in this step - but this painting is supposed to be mostly about a value study.

The COLOR mixing part of this workshop was KEY.  I learned some new things about mixing color!

Next is using the substrate that is intended for the final painting, in this case, a 9" x 12" Raymar linen panel. DO an underpainting in golden brown

Then I added the darkest darks - the cast shadow and negative shadow spaces.

Next working on the color.

Last - the final painting.

"Green Onions"

9" x 12"

oil painting on Raymar linen board

I had an exciting end to this whole process when I was trying to get the finished canvas to an area in the studio that would not cast extreme light on it, as it was wet and would show shine. In the action of doing this, I dropped the painting face-down onto the floor near the cat box.  Of course, there were little pebbles of cat litter on the floor and they stuck all over the painting.  I had to spend about a half hour meticulously picking off the damage and repainting/touching up the places it had messed with the final piece...it was typical of me to drop it - those kinds of things happen often in my day.

CLUTZ.

 

Shine

 At the current time, I have been working on a watercolor for a 'challenge' in a group I belong to ~

 Ali Gator Watercolor Community with Ali Cavanaugh on Patreon.

The challenge this time was paint a 'self-reflection' - self portrait 

in a reflective surface.  The example given was this M.C. Escher painting.

 I could have used a shiny cooking pot or a shiny hubcap 

or a window with sunlight

to REFLECT my image into, however, I have always wanted a 

'Gazing Globe Mirror Ball'! 

And what a perfect time to bite the bullet and GET ONE.

Amazon had LOTS of them. I chose a 'not so expensive' 7" silver one.

Couldn't quite figure out how to take a photo of my reflection without

the iPhone camera showing - after many attempts and use of camera space

I came up with one I could paint from. I like the up-front image with my 

iPhone and it's eggplant colored Otter Box right there.  These days -

it's totally a fixture of my persona. I take photos of just about everything. 

Maybe you do, too?

I have over 10K photos on my device I probably

 should deal with....someday soon.

"Shine"

12" x 16"

watercolor on Arches cold press paper

That mirror ball will be a new addition to my garden this SPRING and summer.

I will have to invent a way to keep it from 'blowing away'.😆

Isla

 

"Isla"

8" x 8" watercolor

The photo of this painting is not reading right today.  It looks OK on my

iPhone but didn't translate very well to computer.

Most of the time, this is the case.

This is a daughter Isla (pronounced EYE-lah) of a student I taught in first grade, many moons ago.

It's always interesting to see what your long ago students are up to.

This little girl is just as precious as her mom.

WIP - In the Swim of Things

 

Using a photo to paint in watercolor - with permission.  I have miles to go.  

I chose to paint this

because of all the lovely water swirls above the figure.

The figure has crazy foreshortening as it comes toward the camera and

I feel the water distortion has something to do with

that foreshortening, as well.

It looked challenging - and it definitely IS!

Using 8" x 8" Ampersand board treated with housepaint 

and Qor watercolor ground.

 

On a Roll...

But...don't hold your breath.  I am feeling marvelous that I have painted 7 paintings in a little over a month.  Hope to keep up the momentum.  Why? Because it's GOOD PRACTICE.  Learning new ways to use materials and mediums is a cathartic exercise at this moment in time.  

Here is a new watercolor - done from a reference photo from Terry Colby, who is a contributing photographer on a FB group I follow and have permission to utilize what I find there.  This image appealed to me because of the golden hour sort of light that was tripping across this bird's front surface.  

I purchased some basswood unfinished cradled boards by Ampersand.  I used Kilz house paint to seal them, then I added a few coats of Qor watercolor ground on top.  I love this surface ~ it loves watercolor.

Still wavering between people and animals - I am so much more comfortable with the latter.  Finding the courage to push back into a people portrait next.

"Baltimore Oriole"

8" x 8" 

watercolor on Ampersand/Qor treated cradled board

(not a native of Colorado, but awesome coloring - all the same)

A Painting of Ali in graphite gray

 

"Ali" watercolor

8" x 8" cradled Ampersand board

I have been following Ali Cavanaugh on Patreon for a couple of years.  

I have LOTS to learn with

painting the face in watercolor.  

More practice would definitely be golden, 

the other kinds of painting (like the newly found greatness and 

interest of Pan Pastel) get in the way.

I don't have the 'softness' yet in my renditions of the face and hair like I want.

For me, there is quite a 'mind switch' from the 

opaqueness of acrylic and the transparency of watercolor.

I'll get it eventually. Stay tuned.

A Portrait Painted in Acrylic

I have been taking lots of online courses this past couple of years to brush up on and improve my people portraits.  In this painting, in particular, I followed what I learned in a lesson with Kara Bullock.  The subject, my granddaughter and grand kitty were first painted in 'notan' - 3 levels of dark to light in black and white paint - darkest, midtone and light.  It was used as an underpainting guide to the lightness and dark in the painting and it REALLY helped me see and get things figured out on the canvas!

First the NOTAN part - using a grid to keep the likeness...

which was underneath the color I added and after days and days of painting and tweaking, 

here is the final painting.

"Sterling and Rocket"

©Pattie Wall, 2022

12" x 12" acrylic painting on stretched canvas