NELVIA'SART.COM

                                                                         Splash                                                                         11"x14"                                                                          Pastel English Spaniels are water dogs and Izzy is no exception.  This is another shot of Izzy by her Mum, Sandie Bell at PMP.  Sandie is a very talented photographer who shares her shots for artists to ...

                                                                          Izzy's                                                                         9"x12"                                                                      Pan Pastel I pulled several pictures of Izzy but absolutely fell in love with this one.  Actually there are a couple with this branch that is almost as big as she is.  Sandie says she carried it all over the beach th...

                                                                      Schnauzer                                                                         8"x10"                                                                         Pastel Well Colin had talked about his lesson doing a Schnauzer, that he has found some neat technique.  Since this is one breed I haven't drawn I originally set it up to do it straight and just a head shot.  But found a...

                                                   PADT Challenge - German Shepherd                                                                           8"x9"                                                                       Pastel/Paper Back in July of 2011 I tried my first challenge piece with the Paint and Draw Together group.  I was still working fill time and felt it might help me get a bit more productive.  Plus, I find with challenges that I end up doing subjects I wouldn't ...

As most of you know I am one of the worst technology people around.  It takes me triple the time it does someone else to understand what the geek world tells you to do.  I am on a huge learning curve here so thought I'd start to share what I find.   Also you can't be on them all so my goal is to focus on a couple of things for 2017.   Today is an overview of what tools I am looking at. As you know I have changed from DailyPaintWorks to creating a website with FASO, http://nelviasart.com (Fine Art Studio Online).   Why did I change to them?            The first 30 days are free,            then the monthly cost was reasonable,            they host/maintain the website platform, their customer service folks are awesome!!            give you your url name annually as part of fee,            have newsletter c...

                                                         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...

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...

                                                                      Sigh!!                                                                       4"x5"                                                                      Pastel The title comes from the look I think he is giving us.  Yes, got to be purely male with that exasperated look - I think, since this is my story that I asked him to read the directions before assembly....   I think this is a Bernese ...

                                                                         Golden                                                                           4"x5"                                                                           Pastel Well I am working small again this challenge so these will take me about 1-2 hours.  For this dog I used the books example, working directions for colored pencil.  It does and doesn't transl...

Gracie 9"x12" Pastel Today's inspiration, this dog belongs to a friend of mine who graciously let me try to see if I could capture her, meet Gracie.   I believe she is a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.  She really came together, I usually don't do a dog in a couple of hours, but felt I was in the zone and just kept going.  Then stopped before I could start to fiddle. I thought at first she looked mad, but upon researching I found other pictures of this breed who have this look as well.  First time I have done this breed and she was lots of fun with her curly hair.  I might give her a try in oil too just to see how she turns out.   This pastel is done on black paper, and it really is easy to cover and the black peeking through I think adds some interest to the fur texture. Thanks for stopping by and have a super week.

Day 15, somewhere I lost a day. I actually painted this prior to the start of the challenge and am reposting as I am working on several larger paintings and in a cleaning mode.  Started with some cleaning and reorg in the art room and has now spread to the whole house.  You know it is bad when you are excited about buying a new mop!! Anyway, this little guy had such an expression and gave me an opportunity to whip out my pastels and a sheet of velour and go at it.  Always takes me a while to remember how to work on the velour, but I sure do like the results. Thanks for stopping by and have a super weekend.

                                                                        Rrrrruff Day                                                                             12"x9"                 ...

                                                                       Terrie                                                                        9"x12"                        ...

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!

                                                                                                         Bella - The Second Time Around                                                                          Pastel     ...

                                                             What?  I'm a dog!!!                                                                      Pastel                                 ...

                                                                      Sweet Dreams                                                                             7"x5"                   ...

Really!!? 9"x12"                                                                               Oil I just love the expression on this Boston Terrier's face.   Oh yeah, if a dog could talk!!  This is Izabella's best bud and came as part of her reference photos.  Previously I did this dog on scratchboard and thought I'd try him in my new found medium of oil.  Also to surprise my hubby I thought I would do most of the body as I usually do the heads and he always asks why not the complete dog.   If I continue in this I am going to have to either replace my water mixables...

Bella 5"27" Oil This is Bella, a friend's Beagle puppy, think she is 8 months.  Anyway she asked if I wanted to use her for the challenge and sent me a picture.  I decided to try the oils again but did it on canvas paper instead of matboard, which has a slippery surface.  I am not real sure of the colors but I think they are close, I am working with a very limited palette and couldn't get exactly what I was looking for, but in sunlight pictures she is pretty rusty.   The light beige is where I ran into mixing trouble, got either too white, yellow or burnt sienna - ah well.  She sure looks like a cutie.  Have sent to Diane and hoping to hear back from her with her reaction.  Hoping she will like it and that is actually looks like Bella.  Haha   In just 24 hours since I hung the oils with caps down the consistency of the paint has improved a bit, but I have to continually wet them on the palette as they are drying...