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                                                                 Motherly Love                                                                       9"x12"                                                                       Pastel Final day of the challenge and hooray, I made it!!!  Now back to real life and my new color studies that I want to work through. This is the third time I did this challenge, but the first time it wasn't a tremendous pressure, I changed my mindset I guess and it worked.  As always it was worth the effort and I learned a lot, enjoyed just playing with some things and experimenting which I don't always do in real life.  Not sure however, if I am going to do the January challenge as it is only a couple of months away. Who knew how much people love cows, I know of one person that only does cows and sells everything she can make.  Go figure.  This came from a reference photo on PMP by Diane Mowery.   When I saw this I thought it was prett

                                                                       Terrie                                                                        9"x12"                                                                     Watercolor Well Sweetie, this is for you.  Hope it makes you smile and please, get well soon.  Also, guess who else has a hummingbird tatoo??? This little cutie is, gosh I don't know what breed they are, but he is one of two that my friend has and they have a really round blunt snout.  I was originally going to really get wild and crazy with the colors on this, but backed off at the end and did her more true to life.  That is why I did it in wsatercolor as I wanted to drop in and let the colors bleed.  Maybe next time she will have more unusual colors.  And yes, she really does have this little heart shaped nose in the picture.  Not real sure that the hummer reads as a tatoo or if it is more like she is watching the hummer.  Thanks much for stop

OK so technically I didn't do this in a day, but it was sitting around half done so I tried to finish it as after the challenge I have some serious studies that I want to do and wanted to get things cleaned up.  I am so into it I even started cleaning the studio.  Since I have done a lot of pastels I have a lot of dust accumulated along with just plain dust.  I really need to do a complete reorg and sort through and throw out. Sounds like a plan and it isn't even the beginning of the year. This is a mixed media piece, I have white acrylic, pastel and a little gold leaf.   Thanks for stopping by and have a good one.

Most of us don't have the perfect art space, but having been without for a week it sure makes me appreciate what I have.  It felt so good to be back in my creative space where I had things at my disposal.  I loved the flow of this piece but found it was difficult to make a wet splash effect with a dry pastel.  Think I will try this again with wet paint for the splash and figure.  Who knew I'd develop such a love for black paper? Thanks for stopping by and have a great Sunday.

Well this is my last experiment with the fluid acrylics.  I like the  way this one turned out and The way that the Dandellions interplay with the blue arching lines, think it gives it interesting movement.  Back home now sitting on the porch watching the rain fall and glad not to be driving in Atlanta traffic with the wild drivers and the rain.  Content to just stay put now for a,while.  Got to get back into the swing of things for the final days of the challenge. Thanks for stopping by and have a super weekend.

Well here it is day 24 and I will soon be back on track.  This was another of my experiments with fluid acrylics on Bristol board and as before I didn't have the same run out.  Guess the gardening season should be over when you start to see spiders in anything, must be because all the Halloween stuff is out in the stores, just barely dig glut Christmas, peopel it is only September!! Thanks for stopping by and have a super day.

Again anther John Singer Sargent, this is Nettie Huxley, done in 1888.  I first drew her in 1997 and now again.  I think I captured her feminine features better in the second attempt.  Did have a rough go with the nose this time around and seems to me the eyes not the same size (thought I had corrected that)  Oh well, back to,the drawing board.  I am using my site measuring but think as I'm actually drawing I am distorting.  Not on my drawing table at for a few more days so that might be affecting it as well.   But overall I am pleased with her. Thanks for taking a look and hope you are having a super day.

My hubby has put up with me for 348 months, yes he has the patience of Job, hope we have that many more to enjoy!!! The experiments continue.  This time I tried liquefying acrylic using water and pouring on Bristol board that wasn't primed.   I found the paint quickly sinks into the board and really doesn't spread like it did on the Yupo.   Playing is just so much fun. Thanks for stopping by and hope your weekend is great.

Was counting on using my iPad to post to Leslie's site but is too big so just posting to big and Facebook I guess.  Today's project was to do hands.  For me they are one of the most expressive parts of the body, but also one of the hardest to work with.  I certainly need more practice to be able to get the shading without lines.  For something like this I think charcoal may be preferred over graphite to get the softer edges. Thanks for stopping by and hope you are having a great start to the week

When you have the paint mixed up you got to use it, so here is my second adventure with the Yupo and pouring acrylics.  Renate I have so much respect for what you accomplish using this Yupo paper.  I tried really hard on this one to stop blowing and artifically moving the paint around so I did get harder edges.  This sort of looks either like a lilly pond or shamrock to my eye.  That the heck do you see? Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

This little fuzz ball is Coco, the fairly new puppy of one of my friends, Kimberly, who was kind enough to let me try to capture her.  One of the biggest challenges with either people or pet portraits is the reference photos because there are always dark black spots in the shadows.  So you make it up and hope that you have done it right.  One of the fun things about this piece is that white really isn't white and she was just full as of much color as life. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Well my dear friend Renate can make magic happen with Yupo paper and watercolor, me, not so much.  So I wanted to try an experiment with liquefying heavy acrylics (using the airbrush medium) and then pouring onto the Yupo paper and let it do it's thing as it blended and dried.  It goes through all these stages before it finally dries.  As usual with the Yupo you see things you would like it to stay at, but just like a glacier it just keeps moving around.  I don't know, with these abstracts I always try to see things, but only thing I could come up with here was the base of the toadstool!!!!  Ah well was great fun and will try again. Thanks for stopping by and taking a look and have a great week.

Today I am using a drawing I did a while ago, as I took yesterday off and just thoroughly enjoyed cutting grass when it wasn't 90s and sitting on the porch.  The weather is definitely feeling like Fall here and not sure how long it will last.  I really like doing this graphite piece, she has such a happy carefree mood about her. Thanks for stopping by and hope you will have a super Monday.

                                                                                                         Bella - The Second Time Around                                                                          Pastel                                                                          8"x10 My friend, Diane, was kind enough to let me do her dog again.  I first did Bella back in the January challenge when she was just a puppy.  She has posted some really cute pictures on facebook, and Bella is quite the diva now.  This took me more time than some of my other daily drawings because I really  wanted to try to get her more accurately.  And of course I reverted back to pastel because it is my security blanket.  But pastel is ok, since the first time I did her was in oil.  Thanks for stopping by and taking a look, have a great weekend.

Just a quick sketch today as Friday is "date day" and Atlanta finally got a break in the weather.  So it was lunch on the porch with a bottle of wine and I have been kind of fuzzy this afternoon.  Tomorrow nose back to the grind stone, but this sort of does go along with my minimal stroke concept. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend.

Elephants are such fascinating animals, very intelligent and quite structured.  I love the texture of their hide and always enjoy drawing them.  Just plenty of places to put squiggles and lines.  I always am amazed at how small their eyes are with such a gigantic body, but they seem to have no issues seeing.  The Washington DC Zoo has several elephants and it is always fun to watch them interact with their trainers.  Thanks for stopping by and hope you are having a great day.

                                                             What?  I'm a dog!!!                                                                      Pastel                                                                     9"x12p" When I went looking for inspiration I knew I found it when I saw this expression.  This is a photo from Paint My Photo, such wonderful, talented and generous photographers that share their work, this is my second photo from Mido Modi.  What a face!!!  So thankful for the black Artagain paper and my pastels and we were off to the races.  Went fairly quickly, although had to redo one of the eyes as it got a bit too large.  And had fun adding color to the black sections of the fur.  Thanks for stopping by and taking a look and have a super day - Thursday already!!! 

This is a rough up of an eye study in my sketch book for a pastel portrait I have done.  George was a centenarian and a mountain man who lived around Waynesville, NC in one of the hollers.  Always got to work on those features and noses are tough for me. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day

One of the hardest things for me in trying to be an artist is to see something in my head and not be able to get it onto paper.  I took a shortcut here and tried to make translucent lanterns on black paper, got the buckle and black always eats color.  While I did under paint the lanterns with white gesso and used glazes made with the airbrush acrylic fluid medium these didn't turn out as I initially saw them in my head.  However I do like how the colors show up off the black.  And certain parts do have the translucence I was looking for.  So I guess that's why we keep coming back and trying again and again to get the look we think we see.  Know I learned something from this exercise. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

My favorite watercolor artist is Hubert Shuptrine, his books were released in the 1970-1980's and I have fortunate to have two of the tree Jericho books.   He has an incredible talent, painted on location, uses a low-key limited pallet and put out several books on the South where he met "the people" with unique stories.  So this is a try at Silky, always one of his special subjects, a hill country young girl.   I always thought if I could paint all the pictures in the two books that I have (my treasures) I would finally learn how to paint with watercolor. Thanks for stopping by and hope you are having a great day.

A B                       This is Helen Sears, another of John Singer Sargent drawings, done in 1912.   Wouldn't he have been an excellent and very interesting person to have to dinner?   This time instead of graphite I used white/black hard pastel sticks.  As Paulie says this picture is unusual as in the original the background is black too, so, most of the picture is very dark.  This drawing came together quickly, probably less than 30 minutes, and was hard for me not to overwork it.  I tried leaving stokes in her dress but did smooth out the face, sort of wish I would have left it with original stokes as I think it was fresher.  (Ok, went back and did a rough up more on the face, which do you like better, A or B?)  Oh well, note for next drawing. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Back to ballerinas and light and shadow on this one.  Actually there were several more girls, or partial girls in this lineup, but decided to keep it simple but hope that it draws you into the painting.  Might do this one again as I would really like to work more on the shadows of the first ballerina, but you get the point. Thanks for stopping by and hope you  have a great day.

This is Kenneth Grahame, drawn by John Singer Sargent in 1912.  Sargent is one of my favorite artists and you will see more studies of his drawings as we go farther into the challenge.  He is the absolute master of minimal strokes and as you can see much of this is really in shadow.  I actually lightened it up a bit with accents of light gray for the highlighted areas and used the gray of the paper for the midtones.  This actually is the second study I did today as I just didn't connect with the first one, it takes a bit of doing before I can into the rhythm of his drawings.  But hope by the end of this challenge that won't be the case. Thanks for stopping by and have a great week.  TGIF

Well finally decided on what I want my goal/theme to be for this 30 day challenge, going to try to keep it to minimal strokes, no matter if it is a drawing or painting.  Actually I have a book on John Singer Sargent drawings and am thinking you will see a lot of them, as he is the master of making a stoke count.  This will also expand my working with the Old Masters as well.  Then will try to expand on that goal/theme by working on becoming  a  more accurate measuring kind of girl.  Accurate measurements are so necessary in both figures and portraits.  So that will incorporate my Bargue and Andrew Loomis work as well.  This picture however is fashion, I used to sew a lot but never really drew fashion but like it and while this isn't cutting edge fashion right now I really like the lines in this piece.  Remember hats - wow, nobody wears them now but the guys to cover their bald heads (sorry, the devil made me say that!) Just so you don't think I am totally slacking I am

                                                                Casual Dining                                                                        5"x7"                                                                      Acrylic Ok, so call me crazy, just decided today I would try to do the 30 day challenge by Leslie Saeta.  Have done two before (both in January) and know you always learn a lot, however I do sucumb to the pressure after a while.  So this time I am going to try to do a good deal of the 30 days of the 30 day challenge but not beat myself up if I don't do every day.   Going to enjoy watching other artists do their thing too.  This is one of the pandas, think it is Tian Tian,  at the Washington DC zoo, and is from a shot that I actually took.  He was just kind of hanging out, doing what they do best, resting while eating.  By the way, the flower was actually there and I think it adds a little Oriental flare. Thanks for stopping by and have a great da