NELVIA'SART.COM

                                                                      On Alert                                                                       12"x10"                                                               Pastel/Color Pencil Sandie Bell is a wonderful photographer at PMP and this is her dog, Izzy.  She has some of the best photos of Izzy and got a couple more that I JUST have to do.  Took a few days off from art and was ready to get some marks on paper and decided to try Izzy. I started with color pencil on mat board but couldn't get it to cooperate so then switched and started adding pan pastels and then highlights with the color pencil.  Anyway, just kind of turned into a hot mess of a mixed media piece.  But it got me going again and now just have to figure out what the next project is going to be. thanks much for stopping by.

                                                                   Simply Delicious                                                                          10"x12"                                                                          PASTEL Well, I am not sure but I think this is a Velvet Monkey.  I grabbed this guy from PMP, thanks very much to  Bananenbrot  for this shot.  I had drawn it up thinking I would do it when I decided to do the graphite Drill monkey from Colin. For me this is more like a landscape rather than a portrait of an animal, because what attracted me to the picture wasn't so much the monkey, but I wanted to draw the fruit and use a bokeh background.  The fruit was just full of colors that never get out of my box, all those greens. Thanks much for stopping by and taking a look.

                                                                  Snowy Night                                                                    15.5"x12"                                                                       Pastel Many thanks to Paul Sherman, at PMP, for such a beautiful reference photo to utilize.  He is an excellent wildlife photographer.   I am pretty fascinated with all the big cats, but the snow leopards are one cat that is so secretive that they aren't usually seen, so much is unknown with this cat.  He has tremendously big feet and such soft looking fur that you would just love to have a quick pet.  We are lucky to have a cat to observe when we go to Washington DC.  They actually have a log that is at the front of the cage, that is warmed in the winters, so the cat sits right up, close and personal. While I had a super photo for the cat, the background is more elaborate than the original and I am hoping that it reads like a branch with cl

                                                               Mother's Touch                                                                    11"x12"                                                                     Pastel This is another lesson from Colin where again I chose my own reference photo but tried to utilize his techniques.  This is a shot of one tired Mom, but baby is content to just be held in that huge, but tender hand, and hopefully Mom gets a few minutes of peace.  This was my first try of the Ingres sand color paper that Colin really likes.  Matter of fact he is about the only one who likes this paper.  But it does hold a decent amount of pastel and adapts to the blender tool very well.  I usually like gray paper, but the sand/beige color goes well as a mid tone and doesn't dramatically alter either the light or dark colors. The background here is pan pastel and the Orangs are pastel pencil.  Finally am figuring out a process to sharp

                                                                       Drill Monkey                                                                           7"x11"                                                                         Graphite I have finished my first month studying with Colin Bradley.  I feel pretty good that I finished five of his projects.  With each one I watched his videos and while not completing his exact reference photos I did something like his pose and lighting (or at least tried).  This monkey happens to be his reference photo and is done primarily in graphite with several different tones of pencils. It is on Stonehenge white paper and is yet another experiment.  When I do graphite I like to add in a bit of color pencil, especially in the eyes and did follow Colin's example of doing the red spot under the chin. The experiment part of this is that for the background and the leathery-like portions of the face I thought I'd try Brus