Italian Decadence

Italian Decadence 6" x 18"   Coloursofts & Prismacolors on Pastelbord

You might notice I chose a different reference from the one in the video in the last post. I wanted it to look more decadent so I decided on this set up  where the satin fabric played  a larger role. There are a lot of objects in this piece, but I think it works because of the way like colors/values are grouped together. Please click on the photo to view it larger. 

People often ask how long my drawings take to do, so for this one I tried to figure that out.

Thursday: 4  hours setting up still-life, Photoshopping and drawing line drawing on board.

Friday day: 5 hours drawing (with breaks)

Friday night: 4 hours

Saturday day & night: 8 hours

That adds up to 21 hours for this little piece. Although I have to admit that the cow still-life, which is the same size, took me about 14 hours. The Italian one has more objects that are also more detailed so it took a lot more time. 

Good Luck

Good Luck

12" x 12"

Coloursofts and Prismas on Fisher 400 paper

I just finished my Good Luck still-life. I should have photographed it before I varnished it as it glares all over it. It still needs to be mounted then I'll bring it in to the gallery.

Nopales

Cactus Salsa

In November I am going to be part of an exhibition at Mission Trails Regional Park in San Diego California along with my online critique group: Louise Sackett, Katherine Tyrrell, Gayle Mason, and Vivien Blackburn. 

The show is supposed to reflect the wildlife in the park. Here's a snippet from the Mission Trails website:

Mission Trails Regional Park encompasses nearly 5,800 acres of both natural and developed recreational acres. Its rugged hills, valleys and open areas represent a San Diego prior to the landing of Cabrillo in San Diego Bay in 1542. 

It has been tough for the group to come up with subject matter for the show as all but Louise lives far from the area. I live in New Hampshire, on the east coast, which seems mighty far away, but Katherine, Vivien and Gayle live even further away in England, so I am not going to complain. 

On the Mission Trails website they have listings of pretty much all the plants that live in the park. One was the prickly pear cactus (the one and only cactus in the park) which I am very grateful for! So when I went back home to Illinois this summer I visited a Mexican grocer and got myself some prickly pear cactus! I know... show in California, I live in New Hampshire and I picked up the subject in Illinois... at a grocery store. Well you do what you have to do!

So to end an unnecessarily long story, my cactus has been getting browner and browner in the fridge so I had to do this piece now! Its a collection of ingredients for Nopales Salsa! 

I'll be doing a couple of more pieces for the show soon... thanks to my stepsister Lisa who lives in San Diego and who sent me a bunch of goodies she and her son picked up for me! 

A Walk in the Woods

10" x 8"

Prismacolors on Pastelbord

We have been enjoying loads of wild raspberries from our backyard. We've had raspberry muffins, pancakes and they are great in my greek yogurt with some walnuts. So this little still-life is just some things I found in the woods behind my house and stuffed in a little metal green teapot. 

Sorry for the lousy photo.. it was late and I only had artificial lighting. The photo below is interesting though. The butterfly still-life on the left is under Museum glass and there is no glare and the orchid one next to it which is on Pastelbord and has been varnished has a terrible glare! The Walk in the Woods has not been varnished yet so again no glare there. 

I hope to drop these 3 off to the gallery tomorrow along with some portraits. That is if I can get them framed! They are just sitting in the frames right now. 

Oriental Flair Big

Oriental Flair Big

11" x 14"

Prismacolors and Coloursofts on grey Pastelbord

I hope everyone had a good weekend. I carved out some time this weekend to work on a larger version of the oriental inspired orchids (mostly the rainy Saturday we had). I haven't varnished this piece yet, so I hope the grey board won't darken it too much when  I spray it. I think what happens is the varnish makes the board show through more making it darker. 

Below is this piece paired with the mini piece for scale. 

Oriental Flair

Orchids

         6" x 10"

Prismacolors of Fisher 400 paper mounted to Gatorboard

I'm kind of hooked on this 6" x 10" shape. Its kind of funny because this shape is just the leftover piece from the board I had Creative Encounters cut & mount off of my sheets of Fisher 400 paper. I just like that little bit of extra height to cure that perfect rectangle feel of an 8 x 10. 

I am also stuck for a little bit on the tiny details after doing these! I better do a bigger one next to get me out of it for a bit - but I have 2 more 6 x 10's left!

Here's a pic of the three small ones sitting on (a very dusty) ledge together. Seeing this I may darken Maggie's figure  on the first one. 

Traditional Lemons

I just finished a more traditonal looking lemon still-life. Its 12 x 12 - which I guess is not a traditional format. I placed the glass almost dead center and flanked it with lemons. Click on it to see it bigger.

I've been spending a lot of mental energy on trying to figure out what to do as a sequel to my Zen piece. Search my blog for the word Zen if you are not familiar with it. I've come up with some good ideas I think... but will not know for sure until I sit down with the model - hopefully this weekend I can do that. I did get some really bad ideas pop into my head too... like having her lean over in the same pose but instead of a stack of rocks in front of her, place a very tall sandwich or scoops of leaning icecream. See I said it was bad! I did have a couple of good ones however and hopefully I can work with my model soon.

Well my little flu case is feeling pretty good today... but the school doesn't allow kids to come back to school the day after they get sent home with a fever. With all the flu going around it is a good rule, but bored little 6 year olds who are missing their Halloween party at school are not that fun to be around!

But look! I got it finished except for sealing it first with a colorless blender and varnishing.
I am also trying to decide if I should erase some of the background and add another lantern on the left side? Take a look at the next picture and see where I copied and pasted an extra lantern... it wouldn' be an exact copy like that but it just shows that space filled. Should I? Maybe it looks better without the arrangement perfect like in the first photo?

& I wanted to talk a little more about the composition. It had a little problem from the start since the chinese lanterns are so tall and the other objects are so much lower. At first actually I had some artificial lanterns from the client... but those proved to be way too tall when I got back to the studio and looked at the photos I took at the client's house, so I went out and got some real ones. Much better fit then... and I just had to move a couple lanterns when I drew it and delete one and it was a good arrangement... nature somehow usually works!

The lanterns are still pretty tall though... and the other objects pretty short. So to fit it all and stick around the size the client originally asked for, I had to put the whole arrangement lower on the board than I usually do. It doesn't look great, until you put on a faux frame which visually lengthens the bottom of the composition. :-)

pears finished

Finished. I wish I would have done it on a darker board, because the little light tan specks are showing a bit too much.

Caulfield's Dairy

I still want to add some glazes on that watercolor one, but here is a little one that had to be done. Can you see why?

It's 8" x 10" on grey pastelbord with my favorite dry colored pencils. I actually got to scan it in instead of photograph it because of its size. It looks so different this way and you can enjoy the texture. :)

ode to Dutch Still-life

Also for my birthday, I received two books on Dutch Still-life:

Still Life and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age
By: Julie Berger Hochstrasser
&
Pieter Claesz 1596/97 - 1660
By: Pieter Biesboer (Author)

Pieter Claesz has always been my favorite of the Dutch still-life artists. The second book I listed there which is titled simply Pieter Claesz 1596/97-1660, features a very nice grouping of his work that was recently shown together at the Washington National Gallery of Art. Although not much is known about Pieter Claesz himself, (they don't even have a record of his birth) being able to look at so many pieces of his, along with the dates he did them, shows how remarkable he was as an artist. If I could be as good at the end of my career as his work was in his early twenties, I would be a happy person.

This still-life has taken some cues from his work: the overall shape of the grouping of objects, the cup which tilts on the edge of the tray, the platter hanging off the edge etc etc. It was loads of fun to try & I may be doing more!

Asian Pears

These actually aren't Asian Pears... well, the Asian ones weren't on sale!

Yesterday was my eh hem... my 35th birthday. After getting over the shock and mourning of not being in my early 30's anymore, I decided to work on a new drawing before heading out last night to a Mexican dinner with friends. If I remember correctly, the food wasn't very good, but the conversation and drinks made up for it.

This is the first time I added steam! It just needed something in that open space behind the tea and I didn't want another object. I was worried about the composition thinking it would be weird with the flowers cut off but I'm pretty happy with it. The teacup is the obvious focal point with the steam and extra contrast. Also the eye seems to travel out with the flowers and tea pot sput but comes back in with the pitcher on the right and go right back to the tea.

Ooh as I'm writing this the buzz buzz buzz national weather service has just issued a severe thunderstorm warning. Amazing I'm not unloading groceries from the car as that's where I usually am during storms! Its been storming pretty much all day and is sticky hot outside while I've been happily sitting at the kitchen table drawing right next to the air conditioner in the window.... bliss...

Pretty in Pink & Derwent Coloursoft review

I wouldn't want you all to wait too long without a new piece! This again is just off the drawing table - meaning that I haven't "tweaked" it yet so there will be minor changes before I seal it. The photo isn't very good as it is blurry on the right side. I had to photo it quickly as I photograph them outside and it was drizzling!

For all you colored pencil people I wanted to talk a bit about the new Derwent Coloursoft pencils. I used some on this piece and the previous pieces I've done. I only did one so far in all Coloursoft pencils - I've mostly been combining them with Prismacolor.

I just love these pencils so far. They blend really well without getting that darn waxy build up and combine well with Prismacolors. I did find, however, that it is best to put the Coloursofts over the prismacolor than the other way around as the prismacolor waxiness is hard to get on top of the Coloursofts - not impossible though. The colors of the coloursoft are amazingly vibrant and, so far, I haven't had any trouble with them darkening with fixative or even the spray varnish I use after fixing. The black and white pencils (and ditto if you are an indigo junkie) are worth buying alone as they go on much better than Prismacolors. The black for instance covers most all of the pesky grain of the Pastelbord easily while the black Prismacolor never does. My black and indigo are small enough already that I need new ones!

They are available now in open stock at Dick Blick http://www.dickblick.com/zz220/64/. If they weren't avaiable that way I wouldn't have even tried them.

My only complaint so far is that although they fit in my American pencil sharpener - you have to use some muscle to really get them to sharpen. I guess I need to get a Euro pencil sharpener! Oh and the other thing, which really comes from being used to Prismacolors, is that all the pencil shafts are the same color so although they are marked on the bottom with the color they are harder to locate quickly like with Prismacolors.

If I could buy them in openstock locally I would switch over to them from Prismacolor - I like them so much - but there's always that time when you just need another pencil NOW and can't wait for mail order. Plus I have drawers filled with Prismacolors so I can't switch any day soon!

the Golden Pear

This is 8" x 10" on Pastelbord. I'll be back to my favorite format (6 x 18") for the next one! I scanned it in so it is doing something weird to the edges and the grain appears larger - but oh well it AGAIN gives you an idea of what it looks like.

I just was inspired looking through my latest copy of Pottery Barn. I know its not a magazine - its a catalog - but I can thumb through it just as long. For summer they have all the beach gear displayed and along with it was a little grouping of light green/aqua/light blue bottles that would look so good in my favorite format with a couple of white seashells. Well now I guess I have something to hunt for at the thrift stores and garage sales where I get most of my still-life models.

I'm on a roll with these drawings but unfortunately I have to take a break tonight and fold some of this laundry that is accumulating. I've been putting it through the washer and dryer but not folding it and putting it away. Back to drawing tommorrow!

Fiesta Orange

Here's another one for Monadnock Fine Art Gallery - one step closer to that 6-10 pieces I need to bring in. I'm starting to get tired - I guess this momentum can't last forever. I love the rendering of them all, but coming up with the compositions and lighting them just wipes me out. I set this still-life up the day before I did the sidewalk drawing and then yesterday when I got back from Art Walk until I went to bed and today all day I've been working on the rendering.

I am terribly excited however to finally use one of the fiestaware mugs that I purchased on ebay. I bought 10 of them in all the different colors and they've been waiting impatiently to find a spot in one of my still-lifes. :)

I'm ready for a real coffee now! :)