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                                                             Borrowed Time                                                                 15.5."x12"                                                                    Pastel Yes, I do get itchy when I go for any length of time and don't do something with pastels.  Still my first love as far as mediums go.  But I thought this was something I wanted to do especially as a direct impact of our visit to the zoo.  As I mentioned we did a trip to t...

                                                                               Wolf                                                                               9"x12"                                                                            Pan Pastel Well apparently it doesn't take much to keep me entertained.  We are in a really rainy pattern right now and that means I can take some time not in the...

                                                           The Lighthouse Keeper                                                                       15.5"x12"                                                                          Pastel This is the first picture that I have done on pastel mat.  I have been holding off trying it until I felt I was back with pastels.  Now that I have I am very pleased with the surface, for I think it is between velour and sanded paper, ...

                                                                    The White Ghost                                                                             9"x12"                                                                             Pastel Trying to get out of my slump so have spent some time watching YouTube videos - now that can get your revved up.  People are so darn talented and try to many things!!  Couple that with t...

                                                 Red Sky at Night, Sailors Delight                                                                        14"x11"                                                                   Mixed Media Just kind of dinking around trying to get my mojo back after completing a commission.  I always seem to have a downward spiral after a complicated picture.  Anything that seems to come after it I am never satisfied. But I started this one and by sheer discipline I am finish...

                                                                 Fence Line                                                                    12"x9"                                                                Mixed Media Mixed Media, what does that mean.  There is a little of everything in this piece.  This is a quick landscape that I wanted to try to stay not mega detailed and try some different things, in other words just play.  It started off with my making my own suppor...

                                                         Ah, You're Leaving Me                                                                     12"x12"                                                                       Pastel Just 3 more days - I'm not doing this again in September, I don't care how  much I think I should!!  I am going to sit back and enjoy all the art the other crazy people are making. This is one of the photos I found when I was looking for references for yesterday...

                                                                           Peonies                                                                             5"x9"                                                                          Pan Pastel 2/3s of the way so got to celebrate!!  Such a dreary day outside today that I totally changed subjects.  Actually I got my Burpees catalog yesterday and got one for Paul to...

Ok, I like these days, as I did all the work on another day.  Doing this really helps me get my second wind and am hoping that I hit the wall and it will be downhill now.  Now it is just the frosting and most fun part to any picture, adding color.  As threatened, yep another experiment, I went ahead and tried to see what I would get if I used pan pastels over the grisaille of black/white/gray tones.  Because the pans are so transparent they did a good job of covering but not totally  obliterating the under painting and now it gives me nice soft grays in the white coat and wrinkles without hard edges.   Don't think it should be a problem being over the acrylic, but would either have to seal with workable fixative or recommend it be framed behind glass.  Although anything I do on paper I recommend framing even if it is acrylic - and for acrylics, whether on paper or canvas I also spray varnish it just like you would an oil painting.  Why?? yo...

                                                                       Breakout                                                                           3"x5"                                                                        Pan Pastel I did this little guy, a super reference photo from Max Hemingway of PMP, back in 2014, but with his buddy and a cat that was asleep, or was he?  That was done in graphite and again I did a little of the ...

Well here is another quick sketch with the idea coming from Lee Hammond's book Darwing Realistic Pets.  That of course is all done in graphite and I went ahead and gave it some color.  This is another little one and I like how he is about to spring on something that has caught his attention.  This again is on stock paper and done with pan pastels. Thanks for stopping by.

                                                                           Walter                                                                            11"x8"                                                                            Pastel Well this hasn't happened in a while, Friday, the 13th, but no ladders or black cats for us today..... Instead  we get Walter, I think.  My friend Laurie has two Hima...

In the real world this little guy wouldn't make me happy, but in my world today he makes me smile.  I wanted to rest a little bit so decided to do this as an experiment - yep that's my byword I guess.  Je is another mini, only 3.5"x3.5".  It is on stock paper which is nice and smooth (I bought a package for another experiment that didn't work out).  So thought I'd try to utilize the colors behind some sketches and use some of it.  I put down the base coat with pan pastels as I wanted to see if I could put graphite over it, I already know that color pencil doesn't work.  I also wanted to see if you could layer a lighter color over a darker color and you can see it did work in the lighter areas.  You can see the applicator was still dirty from another picture, but doesn't matter because there is always a lot of color in shadows.  Then I went over the top of the pans with graphite and voila, in about 20 minutes I was done for today!!   My rewa...

Not exactly sure why, but this horse is tiny, 4"3.5".  So it was a bit of a challenge to get some of the features in - but boy this guy had some ears and I got all of them I guess.  Anyway the background is pan pastels - oh I just love them for the even backgrounds and smooth gradations.  It did take an additional layer though at the end to add a bit more depth to the color and also clean up the edges of the horse.  Most of the horse is done with pastel pencil and the bridle is done with color pencil so I could get a bit more control. Since today is the day that we did all the parades (yes I was doing this on 1/2, I always try to be ahead any more then  I can miss and still post if needed)  I just wasn't in the mood to do anything this morning, but I persevered and so do have another day in the bag for when I want a break or to be lazy farther into the challenge. Thanks much for stopping by and taking a look, much appreciated.

                                                                    The Perch                                                                      16"x12"                                                                       Pastel Ok, I am giving up, throwing in the towel and going to just go with the details.  I just don't have it in me to be impressionistic and loose I guess.  Working again with the pan pastel colors that I have, but my additional ones have a...